Climb That Mountain High
by Beverly McIntyre
Summary: A Broken Palisades story. Tinkering with something she really shouldn't have, Spiral unleashes an ancient force bent on reconquering the world. It's now up to Dakota and the X-Men to stop the mythological havoc.
1. CTMH Prologue

THE ALMIGHTY DISCLAIMER [for it would have to be almighty to keep me out of trouble]: The X-Men and affiliated people belong to Marvel. I am using them without permission, but I am doing this for fun. (In an odd sadistic way.) No money is being made from this. If I were, I would be in New York working for Marvel. Since I am nowhere near that general vicinity, please don't sue. By the way, Dakota is mine and anyone who steals him better go back to Ethics class. (Besides, I'm running out of places to stash the bodies.)

NOTE: This story takes place in my continuity a few days after "Waitin' For The Deal To Go Down". This takes place just prior to the Psi-War. (Which I will let into my continuity relatively soon.) 

CAPS = just plain old yelling.  
**bold** = snazzy sound effects  
_italics_ = the deepest, darkest thread of humanity (I usually just call them thoughts.)

* * *

Climb That Mountain High - Prologue   
Beverly McIntyre  


Mount Olympus, Greece. 

Snow crunched under her boots as a cold zephyr wrapped itself around her. Yet she paid no heed. She trudged up the small, winding path that only she could see. The way was fraught with danger, one wrong step and she could plummet right off the mountain face. Of course, she could always teleport to the end of the path and make it easier for her. But where was the fun in that? Besides, she didn't know if teleporting to the spot would disrupt what she was looking for. Mystical energies were not predictable things. She could endure this trek if what she felt throbbing in the pit of her stomach was real. 

Her thoughts were disrupted by her hand slipping of one of her handholds. She teetered backwards as one hand shot to grasp something on the rocky face to keep her on the mountain. Another hand grasped wildly as she felt her equilibrium slip. And another. 

Spiral, Mistress of the Wildways, teetered just a breath longer before four of her six hands had latched onto something, and she managed to pull herself back onto the path.. She stood there, hugging the mountain face for a minute. With her cheek pressed against cold rock, she collected her thoughts. Mind set back on the task at hand, she carefully pulled away and carefully picked her way back up the path. The clearing couldn't be too far ahead now. 

She continued forward. Mountain breeze sometimes blowing her ivory-colored hair into her eyes. She'd reach up with one of her six hands and brush the strand of hair out of her eyes. Squinting against the light reflecting off of the snow, she spied a dark blotch ahead that had to be her destination. Treading with a slightly quickened pace, the snow scurled away as she kicked it up with her boots. 

She made it to a small cave and ducked inside. She stopped a few steps inside of the mouth of the cave, halted by the magnitude of mystical energy she felt radiating further in. The energy was so live she could feel it dancing up and down her spine. _Oh, if that bloated bag could see me now. . . ._ The energy was so palpable that she could feel it eddy and flow around her with every breath she took. She paused and took a few deep breaths, relishing the sheer power that was soon to be hers. 

Power-hunger slightly whetted, she continued forward, following a thread of magical energy that throbbed with power. No one could stop her now. She was too close to be stopped. The X-Men wouldn't pop out to stop her. _Rot their eyes._ Dr. Strange was already too late. _Rot his eyes_. Not even the damnably lucky Longshot could do anything. _Rip out his spine and dance on it. _

She had felt this mystical energy only recently. It emerged shortly after those creatures called the N'Gari started an ill-fated invasion of this dimension. Spiral had been minorly aware of what was going on for she liked to keep herself apprised of any mass dimensional transportations. The X-Men had stopped the N'Gari's plan before it came to full effect. _As always, they ruin a good thing._ Spiral's only interest in the invasion was the junction point located on the grounds of Xavier's estate. The one Longshot and Dakota had been trying to stem the tides from. She hung near there, watching and hoping that the little blond superstar would have been gutted by the N'Gari. But as luck would have it, Longshot came out of the engagement without a scratch. _Didn't see his little harlot with him. Wonder if he left her high and dry too? _

Something welled up far inside Spiral, where traces of the human she had been still lingered. She stifled whatever it was and kept moving. She had no time for it. She was Spiral, not some stuntwoman who had fallen hoplessly in love with Longshot. Ricochet Rita was dead and gone, and Spiral had killed her. 

Spiral continued on. There was no need to fight an inner battle that had already been won. Her senses homed her toward the far wall. She stopped right in front of it, feeling the mystical energies that were so thick they stuck to her like a second skin. She placed a four-fingered hand on the wall of the cave and felt the wall throb at her touch. One little dance and this little pocket of energy would be hers to play with. She wondered who would be the lucky one she would experiment on with this new cash of mystical energy. _Hmm. The possibilities. _

She begun her dance without quite realizing it. Her six arms weaving in archaic patterns, coaxing the energy toward her. One arm, without breaking its pattern, drew out a multi-faceted gem out of thin air. Spiral moved around the cave. Every move was wrought with an alien grace. Sweat sheened on her forehead. It felt like energy was being drawn from her own body into the gem held clenched in her fist. Panic set in as Spiral tried to stop casting but her body would not stop. _What is happening? I can't stop! _

A small fissure appeared in the cave wall opposite her. Tendrils of energy snaked out toward the gem that had begun to glow in her hand. With her mouth now totally dry from fear, Spiral watched as a small tendril of mystical energy touch the gem. Her eyes traced up the tendril to its source. When she looked right at the fissure, it pulsed brightly. Spiral fought to break the spell, to make her body hers once more. She had achieved a modicum of success when the world blew up around her. 


	2. CTMH 1

Standard DISCLAIMERS apply with the added Dakota and Yankton are mine. 

FEEDBACK/ARCHIVING are welcome things. Send feedback to bkittle@creighton.edu 

I've kinda rated this PG-13 for the fact there is a part in there I wouldn't let my younger cousin read. If it is actually PG-13 is actually up to the reader. 

CAPS = loud speech   
**bold** = noises   
_italics_ = That's what I thought 

* * *

Climb That Mountain High (Part 1) Beverly McIntyre 

_There has to be one more. There's ALWAYS one more. Just when I think I'm _done_, I remember just _one_ more body I have to clean up._ Dakota grimaced as he caught the scent of a decaying flesh on the breeze. _I'm going to have to talk to Chuckles about this. I never signed up to do carcass clean-up._

Dakota moved toward the stench as his stomach roiled. An entire morning of picking up decaying bodies had made him ultimately regret eating breakfast this morning. _Never again will I say, 'We can clean this up in the morning.'_ Though he had been lucky on some accounts, Maggott's two little slugs had taken care of over half of the bodies. Dakota grimaced again when he thought about it. _Stop it. You're just makin' yourself even sicker. Why just because the X-Men arrived home around four in the mourn-_ **squish.**

Had the tall man actually been paying attention to where he was going rather than getting lost in his own thoughts, he might have seen the entrails before he stepped right in them. Dakota looked down at his feet and felt a wave of nausea wash right over him. _Oh, now I've gone and stepped in it._ He backed out of the mess he had walked into and began to vigorously wipe his boots off in the grass. When he was sufficiently happy that his boots were clear of entrails so he could burn them later, he looked up at the clearing in front of him. 

He had found the N'Garai body that he had hoped Maggott's slugs had taken care of. The entire clearing was covered with N'Garai parts. _Lucky, next time you explode something with vital organs, you get to clean it up._ The grass was dyed a deep red with blood. Pieces of alien body adorned the surrounding trees. It looked like a creature had exploded from the inside out. _Which it had. Which is why I'm not happy with a certain blond personage. This is definitely going to require more than one Hefty bag. This was a big sucker._ Dakota dismally looked around the clearing. _A big sucker with a lot of innerds._

Heaving a mighty sigh, Dakota wiped his palms on his blood-stained jeans. He pulled the last pair of rubber gloves Dr. Reyes had given him out of his back pocket. He put them on and made sure to snap them just like he had seen thousands of times on the television and the movies. He pulled the red bandana that hung loosely around his neck back up, over his nose and mouth. _Maybe next time I could con Reyes out of a surgical mask, too._ Dakota grabbed one of the last two trash bags dangling out of his front pocket and snapped it open. _Now, where do I start?_

"Do you need any assistance, Dakota?" 

The black-haired man looked down the path behind him. Storm, white-haired leader of the X-Men, was strolling up the path. Dakota felt the breeze shift so the stench of what was left of a N'Garai wafted away from him. _Somebody doesn't like the stench either._

"Sure. Fill this up." Dakota held out the empty garbage bag for her. Storm stopped in front of him, looking down at the bag, then at Dakota. 

"I do not have any money." 

Dakota's brow furrowed. _Huh?_ It took a second for him to realize he was still wearing the bandana over his nose and mouth. Thus, he resembled a bank robber. 

"Oh, no," Dakota gasped. "The world's going to fall apart. Storm made a joke." 

Storm took the plastic garbage bag from his hands. "Though I am not known for my sense of humor, I do have one." 

"Hmm. I'll just have to add slight sense of humor to Chu-_Xavier's_ files next to fashion sense and a sense of justice." Dakota turned and crouched down next to the nearest smattering of N'Garai parts. He picked up the pieces that were not melded with part of the landscape. "If you don't mind me asking, what are you doing up so early. You guys came in pretty late." 

"It is not quite as early as you think. It is nearly noon." 

Dakota paused in picking up rather unmentionable things. He had been out since six picking up the grounds of N'Garai mess. It was no small wonder that his stomach was protesting; it was running on empty. _I get to eat as soon as I finish cleaning up this. 'Cause if I go in to eat and actually manage to keep it down, I'm not coming back out here._

"But I must ask, Dakota, did you not go a little overboard on taking care of this N'Garai?" 

"I didn't 'take care' of this one," Dakota said as he straightened up. He turned and dumped the bloody mess into the waiting garbage bag. He was glad that the bandana hid the lower half of his face when he saw Storm wrinkle her nose at the odor now coming from the bag in her hands. 

"If you did not, then who did?" 

"Longshot." He caught the shocked glance from Storm to the contents of the bag. "The thing tried to eat Yankton. Longshot wasn't going to have his puppy eaten by a big, slobbering demon. He pulled out one of his throwing spikes and let loose on the demon." 

"'Let loose?' What do you mean 'let loose?'" 

"You remember why Longshot left the X-Men in the first place?" 

"He felt he was as we were. Everything had a history while he did not. He wanted to fill in the gaps of what was missing so he could be whole. He felt once he was whole, he could return to us."

Dakota blinked and stopped himself from scratching his head. He didn't need to wash bloody stuff out of his hair, but what Storm had just said wasn't quite what Longshot had told him. "Well, another one of his concerns was not having enough firepower to stand next to you people at times. I kinda helped him find a new power to rival some of you guys." 

"What do you mean 'new power'?" 

"Well, after he bumped into me, and I mean that quite literally, after he left you guys in Australia, we traveled around together for awhile. I guess sometime while we were out on the road, I said something that made Longshot think that he had something more. He found that something when we ran into the D.C. shortly there after." Dakota let out a small laugh. "Lash didn't appreciate being blown off of her feet by one tiny little spike." 

Storm's eyes steeled over. "She got what she very well deserved." 

Dakota had never seen this side of Storm, nor did he want to see it right now. Obviously, the X-Men's run in with the Destruction Crew a few weeks ago still had some raw feelings running through the team. Especially in Psylocke and Angel's cases. Psylocke just itched to get back at the degenerate people who caused so much suffering to herself and the man she loved. Angel was more angry because of the wheelchair he was forced to use temporarily. He could have been more bitter about the event but since his wings had "miraculously" been healed from their former charred state, Worthington appeared to be more at ease than his paramour. Of course, Dakota knew there was no miracle to the healing of Angel's wings. The Lakota never counted the things he did for people among those of miracles; he just hoped that his little secrets stayed amongst the people he trusted, like Longshot, and those who just happened to have an inkling of what he did, like Storm. 

Dakota quietly turned back to clean up some more of the N'Garai splatterings; he would let Storm work through whatever she was feeling at the moment on her own. As he crouched down, he caught some movement in the woods out of the corner of his eye. Thinking it was just another deer scampering through the woods, he continued to scoop up whatever N'Garai parts he could. He stood up when had a good handful of stuff. He stopped in mid-stoop when he thought he spied a goat-legged man across the clearing from him. The hairs on Dakota's neck started to burn in a manner that made him think that somebody behind him was looking at his butt. When he blinked in confusion, the creature had disappeared but the sensation of being scoped out didn't end. _At least I'm a distraction for her._

"Uh, Storm." Dakota stood up the rest of the way. He turned to her and dumped his handful into the garbage bag. She tried to raise an eyebrow innocently. The burning on the back of his neck ceased when he turned around. "Either I've been working too hard out here or we have a satyr running around the estate." Jerking his thumb in the direction of where he had last seen the satyr, he tried to discern any sort of guilty look on the weather goddess' face. 

"A satyr?" The feigned innocence disappeared from her face. 

"Yeah, a half man/half goat creature popular in-" 

"I know what a satyr is, Dakota," Storm rebuffed mildly. "Are you sure you saw one?" 

"Well, I'm not too sure. I thought I saw one, but I blinked and it was gone." Dakota started to peel the rubber gloves off of his hands as Storm set the garbage bag down. "Could have been just my body telling me I need to eat something." _Or I was too distracted by the thought of you checking out my butt. Gosh, next thing you'll know, I'll have to update Chuckle's files with a sense of humor and a libido._

"We should still investigate it. Stranger things have happened on these grounds." Storm took to the air just as a haunting melody drifted through the air. Storm halted her ascent abruptly and stopped to listen. 

Dakota tilted his head to get a better earful. After a minute of listening, he turned his face up to Storm, squinting against the sunlight determined to blind him. 

"His middle C's a bit flat, but other than that it's pretty. . . Storm. . . Hello? Earth to the weather goddess." Dakota walked over, reached up, and waved his hand in front of Storm's glazed-over eyes. When she didn't blink or even acknowledge that he was there, Dakota became worried. He dropped his hand down and grabbed her hand. "Okay. C'mon Storm. Time to go inside." 

Storm snatched her hand away from his. "I must. . .talk to . . . this master musician." She started to float across the clearing. 

"I don't think a master musician would let his mid C stay flat. Storm. _Hey_!" 

Storm continued toward the music. Dakota felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise. This was penultimately weird. Something was seriously amiss. 

Being ever so careful where he placed his feet, Dakota followed Storm. As he gazelle-leaped over the biggest of the splatterings, he wished, not for the first time, that he had the ability to fly. It could make his life so much easier. And probably make him look less like a pansy trying to get across the clearing. 

When he finally made it across the clearing and into the shadows of the woods, Dakota found that he had not been hallucinating. Sitting atop a large rock, a goat-legged man played his reed pipes. He had a mop of curly brown hair and two small horns perched on his forehead. He was the source of the melody that currently had Storm swaying in front of the short creature, eyes closed. It was then that Dakota learned a very important thing: nobody manufactures pants for goat-legged men, or underwear for that matter. As it was, Dakota could tell that this satyr was kind of happy to see such a beautiful woman. A couple vivid images that Dakota didn't particularly want floating through his head passed before his eyes. _Ohhh, I'm going to be sick._

The satyr stopped playing his reed pipes looked up at his musically-ensnared prize. His dark brown eyes sized her up. A small smile of delight spread across his lips. 

"Ah. I knew if I had the Muses bless my pipes they'd bring much fairer prizes. Come, my fair one. Come find the ultimate pleasure that is the Lord of the Wild." The satyr stood up on the rock, his cloven feet clopping lightly. It seemed the satyr was even more happy and all to willing to share his happiness with a certain white-haired woman. Dakota had to do something before Storm did something that violated all laws of nature. 

"Alright, I don't know who you are, Mr. Satyr, but put Mr. Happy Stick away," Dakota said as he moved into a patch of sunlight with an enlarged sense of the dramatic. 

Standing on the rock, the satyr glared banefully at him. "Who dares to interrupt Pan's festivities?" 

_'Pan's festivities?' great not only do I have a mythological creature trying to seduce one of the X-Men, I have a delusional one._

"They call me Dakota. Now, are you going to leave or do I have to chuck you out?" _Not sounding too macho, now am I?_

Pan looked over at Storm. "Get rid of this meddler, my prize, so that you alone can enjoy the bountious pleasure that only I can offer you." 

_Where does this guy get his dialogue?_

Storm turned to Dakota, her eyes blazing with an out of place passion. "Leave us be." With no more said, Storm picked Dakota off his feet with a conjured jet of wind and threw him back into the clearing. 

After getting scraped by tree branches, Dakota flew across the clearing and was only stopped from going any farther by a tree that had grown in the way. Wrapped bodily around the tree, Dakota saw a red haze leak over his eyes. _No!_ Dakota forced the haze back. This was none of Storm's doing. She was somehow being controlled by a creature calling himself Pan. His own will won for the time being. With an inner battle pushed away until later, Dakota peeled himself off of the mighty elm that he had become fairly intimate with. 

Wobbling backwards a few steps, Dakota ignored the squishing sounds coming from beneath his boots. He straightened himself up and felt his entire spinal column scream in protest. Fighting back the pain, Dakota turned to back to where the satyr and Storm were hidden. With long, determined strides that only managed to slide a little on N'Garai parts, he crossed the clearing, not particularly caring where his feet landed. Not pausing, he broke through the ring of trees. 

Storm was kneeling, supplicant, before the satyr. Dakota picked up his pace and rushed the short creature. Pan had enough time to turn and see Dakota before he was lifted bodily off of the rock. Held by his neck, Pan's feet kicked wildly two feet above the ground. Dakota held the satyr out at arms length to keep those cloven hooves from doing him any harm. Pan grabbed at Dakota's wrist with both of his hands, trying to yank himself free. 

"Hhhhell-" 

Dakota squeezed tighter, cutting off the satyr's plea for desperately needed aid. 

"Dakota, _release him!_" 

Thinking Storm might be returning to her former self, Dakota's grip on the mythological creature lessened slightly. But he quickly tightened it back up when swirling winds surrounded him. Storm was trying to lift him off of his feet again, but this time she found herself shocked. Not even one hair on Dakota's head moved in her created winds. The intensity of the winds increased but Dakota stood there undisturbed. The satyr, who Storm had positioned outside of the small tornado, was starting to turn blue in the face. Dakota held him up so that the creature had to stare in his stone-cold eyes. 

"I don't know where you came from or how you got here, but you must know one thing, I came here to help the X-Men. No one, not even you, is going to hurt them when I'm around. So go take your Mr. Happy Stick and go fly with it." Before Storm could stop the winds, Dakota drew the satyr into the winds around him and let go. The satyr, caught up in the winds with no tether to anything anymore was picked up and tossed toward the sky. 

"_Master! NO!_" 

Dakota whirled on his heel, ready to face an angry, weather-controlling woman. To his surprise, she stumbled backward with her hands held to her temples. 

"Storm," he said quietly, unsure of what was happening. Offering a hand to help steady her, Dakota watched her stumble out of his reach.

She let out a primal scream; winds flared to life around her, whipping twigs and leaves into Dakota's eyes and forcing him to step back and cover his face. As the scream faded in her throat, she wobbled toward where Pan had disappeared. As Dakota lowered his arms from his eyes, the weather goddess collapsed. 

"_Ororo!_" 


	3. CTMH 2

Climb That Mountain High - Part Two  
Beverly McIntyre

The throbbing pain pulsing through her middle left arm was the first indication that she wasn't dead. The second was the throbbing in her temples. Spiral groaned and stirred as the world slowly came into focus around her. 

She was laying on her back, eyes opening to the azure sky above her. She bit off a curse as she slowly sat up. She was definitely not in the cave anymore, or she had blown the top off of the mountain. Considering the pain her entire body felt, the second option was still feasable. She looked down at the hand which had been holding the multi-faceted gem, a storehouse for mystic power. The gem lay in her palm, burnt out. This time she did not bite off her curse. 

It had taken her countless dimension hoppings to find the perfect gem to store mystical energies that she would want to exploit later. Now her perfect little storehouse was ruined beyond repair. Somebody would pay for this. There was no fault in her actions that could have caused the gem to overload. Somebody had meddled in her affairs. 

Her mind sped over all the possibilities but stopped when glanced beyond the hand holding the gem. There was nothing but open space and sheer mountain face under her. In her mind she had the picture of some absurd cartoon character finally succumbing to the effects of gravity after looking below himself to see there was nothing but air under his feet. Yet, Spiral did not share in the same fate as the precocious little toon. She did not plummet to the ground; she just sat there in the middle of the air. 

A wicked smile spread slowly across her face. The energy she had been trying to contain was not lost. The gem must have siphoned the energy directly into her. There must be a pulse of arcane power within her. Slowly, ignoring the pain throughout her body, Spiral rose to her feet. It was slightly disconcerting for her to feel a solid footing beneath her feet when she was standing on nothing but air, but she had a feeling she could get used to it. Even when she danced, the air had never felt this firm beneath her feet.

She looked at the dead gem, unconsciously held tightly in a four-fingered hand. She could find another one. Another one to siphon the energy into from her body. It would be easier to manipulate the mystical energy if it weren't inside of her. The gem lay in her palm, muted and dull. Spiral tossed it over her shoulder. The gem sparkled once as it sailed through the air. After a brief flash of life, the gem became lost on the mountain side. 

Spiral turned to where the cave had been with a triumphant sneer. The sneer faded from her face when she saw the entrance to the cave blocked by one gigantic foot. Her eyes looked up from the foot to follow the line of a well-muscled leg. Looking farther up, she noticed that the leg was connected to a very large, male body. 

He towered over fifty feet in the air. His long white hair and beard were blowing in the wind. His physique was that of a physically perfect human being. His well-muscled arms were crossed in front of his chest. He wore a golden laurel crown lightly upon his head, but it was not moved by the wind that was whipping his hair around. He wore old fashioned sandals, a gleamingly white long toga, and a broad belt with a silver buckle of a lightning streaked world. There was an open-ended case that hung at his side, bolts of crackling energy protruding out. His blue eyes swept over the landscape, taking in every sight. 

"Hermes!" His voice rolled like thunder over the mountain and the surrounding foothills. 

A chill ran down Spiral's spine as she realized that she had set whatever this was free. 

In response to the gigantic man's beckon, another man, roughly of human size, appeared right in front of the giant's face. The newcomer was a blond man with muscular legs that were built for speed. He wore a shorter toga so as to not interfere with the movement of his legs. He wore a pair of sandals with wings melded to them. He also wore an interesting headband with a pair of white wings on either side of his head. He had a roguish look about him and a smile that only magnified it. 

"Yes, O Lord of Thunder?" Hermes grinned as if the form of address was some sort of joke. 

The Lord of Thunder ignored the joke if there was one and looked out across the landscape. "Hermes," he paused for a moment as a hint of sadness crossed his face before being shoved behind firm resolve, "find out what has happened and where we are. This is not the world below Olympus as I remember it. Find out whatever you can about this world and if any of my pantheon are here as well. They may have more knowledge on this matter than we do." 

Hermes bowed deeply, the wings on his headband brushing the lower hem of his toga. 

"And Hermes, if you should find my beloved daughter, bring her here. I have need of her wise council." 

Hermes bowed again, less deeply, and disappeared. 

Spiral backed away from the man hovering over the mountainside. 

What had she done? 

Spiral shook her head, clearing those thoughts. This was not her home. Why should she care? She had the energy that she had come for. In fact, she should leave here before that monster ever saw her. There was no way to predict what he might do to her. She brought her arms up to begin the easy dance to remove her from the situation. 

"Where are you going to, little one?" 

Instead of starting her complex movements, Spiral grabbed her two swords out of their sheaths. She whirled gracefully toward the voice behind her. Standing there in the thin mountain air was a woman, or at least Spiral thought it was a woman. She wore a full suit of armor made from black bone shards. Her great helm cast a shadow over her most of her face but left her lips unshrouded. Those lips were curled into a deadly little smile. 

Spiral's eyes narrowed, and she fell deeper into a fighting stance. "Who are you?" 

"Has it been so long that mortals have forgotten who I am?" 

Spiral remained mute, watching her adversary's every twitch. 

"Oh, come now child. Surely the world still knows about Hecate." 

A glimmer of recognition flared in Spiral's mind. Hecate was a Greek goddess of magic. 

"Actually, I'm a Titaness. One of the few Zeus had spared for not rising up against him. Now, are you going to put those two tiny pig-stickers away, or do I have to do it for you?" 

Spiral tightened her grip on her swords in response. 

The Titaness sighed. "Mortals." 

Hecate waved her hand and the two swords obligingly disappeared out of Spiral's hands. All six of Spirals' hands clenched into fists. The Mistress of the Wildways took a dangerous step toward the Mistress of Magic. Hecate smiled in amusement. 

"Child, if you want it to be that way, then I will be more than happy to oblige you. But know this, your fight will not be with me. It will be with Zeus, Lord of the Sky." Hecate gestured toward the towering man. Spiral's eyes momentarily flicked to the bearded man. He was shrinking down to a more human size. "Don't let his decrease in size fool you. He is as powerful at a man's height as he is at a Titan's. He will kill you for what you have done to him and the rest of the pantheon. They won't be very appreciative of being pulled into a world that they have not seen for eons nor have not been worshiped in those eons." 

Spiral glowered back at the Titaness. "What do you want?" 

"Ah, I've picked an astute one. There is a price for your continued protection. It is not much when you really think about it." Hecate looked Spiral up and down. Spiral bristled at the inspection. For all intents and purposes, the Titaness had the upper hand. Spiral did not like being the underdog. "You teach me whatever magical knowledge you have." 

Spiral didn't answer. Her mind tried to find a quick way out. She thought about a simple teleportation, but if this woman was truly a goddess of magic, then no amount of teleportation could save her. She already had been disarmed once rather easily. Looking at the ominious figure standing across from her, she had a feeling that she would be disarmed once more if she didn't comply. Spiral didn't even want to visualize herself as a torso without her customary six arms. Besides, this Titaness might have some mystical knowledge she could plunder for herself. 

Hecate smiled knowingly like she had been aware of whatever Spiral had been thinking. "Good.. Then let us begin." 

Before Spiral could even realize what the Titaness was doing, Hecate stepped up to her, placing her hands on Spiral's temples. Spiral felt herself being torn from the inside out. The world imploded on her. 

In a mere heartbeat, there was nothing on the mountain top to even signify that Spiral had ever been there. Except a small gem, buried within a snow drift, that began to glow dully after she disappeared. 


	4. CTMH 3

NOTE: I've rated this part R for the rough language used (coarse men speak a coarse language).

CAPS = loudness  
**bold **= the things a deaf man won't notice  
_italics_ = the things telepaths can notice 

* * *

Climb That Mountain High - Part 3  
Beverly McIntyre

Hank Smith had been a logger all his life. He had the caluses on his hands to prove it. He could think of no other way of life for himself. This was the life his father and his grandfather had lived, and hopefully, this would be the life his own son would live. It was long hours and dirty work, but it was satisfying work. It was man against nature out there. The job was simple, fell the right tree and move on to the next. 

But today had been a bit different from Hank's normal routine. His son had fallen out of a tree and broke his arm last night. After spending the morning in the hospital with his son, Hank resigned himself to another day out in the wilds of Washington. He had to work. It was part of him, and after spending a numbing morning in the hospital, he needed to get his mind back on something. The time spent outdoors made Hank feel more like himself than anything else. It gave him a connection to something greater than he could ever explain to anybody. 

Hank watched the trees pass by outside of the passenger-side window. He sat in his best friend's truck, tooling down the makeshift road to the work site. The leather apolstry creaked as Hank shifted his weight nervously. He couldn't wait to get back to work. Logging made him feel like he was doing something. He always had to be doing something. 

"So, Hank, howz your son doin'?" Dave asked, trying to break the monotiny of the drive. 

"Jus' broke his arm is all. He'll be fine," Hank said absently, lost in thought while his fingers tapped a rhythm out on his leg. 

Dave shook his head. Hank might be his best friend, but the man just got lost in his own little world a little too often. Usually Hank just did that when he was out cutting the trees. Maybe his son gave him more food for thought. Unintentionally, Dave pressed down on the accelerator. Dave was a sociable man who didn't think much of silence. The sooner he got this quiet ride over, the better. 

"Y'know, Dave, I've been thinkin'," Hank said after a few minutes of silence. "I was thinkin' 'bout how much I like loggin'. I was thinkin' about that and wondered if my son will want to follow in my footsteps." 

"C'mon now, Hank," Dave chided. "Y'know that boy worships the ground you walk on. He doesn't think about being an adult without bein' one of us. I mean-" 

Dave was interrupted by a deer streaking right in front of his truck. Dave slammed on his brakes, but it was too late. **Thud.** Dave and Hank lurched forward. The deer bounced off of the front of the truck and landed at the side of the road. Dave and Hank glanced at each other before climbing out of the truck. Dave walked around to the front of his truck while Hank walked over to where the deer was now lying beside the road. 

"Shit." Dave said after looking at the front of his truck. "That thing went and dented my grill." 

Hank ignored his friend and crouched down next to the deer. It was still breathing as far as he could tell. It stirred slightly when Hank reached over and touched it. It looked up at Hank with liquid brown eyes that were shrouded in pain. 

"Great," Dave fumed. "This is just so fuckin' great." 

"Dave?" 

"Yeah, Hank," Dave answered without looking away from his dented grill. 

"Help me get this deer into the back of your truck." Dave looked up from his truck and scowled at his friend. 

"It's gonna die, Hank. Just leave it alone." 

"I think we should do something." 

"We're gonna do nothin', Hank. That deer was fuckin' dumb enough to run out in front of my truck. It got what it deserved." Dave walked back over to the driver's side and opened the door. "We're late as it is." 

As Dave climbed back in the truck and slammed his door shut, Hank looked back down at the deer. Its eyes were pleading with him to end the pain. Hank unsteadily got to his feet and walked over to the truck. 

"Dave, hand me one of your guns." 

"We don't got time for this." 

"Dave, hand me one of your guns." 

"None of them are loaded, Hank. I drive my kids around in this truck. Do you think I'm going to leave a loaded fuckin' gun in my truck?" 

"We have to do something." 

"Look, if your so hell-bent on putting that dumb creature out of its misery, you'll have to wait 'til we get to camp. Bob is sure to have a loaded gun in the cabin. Now, get in the fuckin' truck." 

Hank looked back at the deer. It was feebly trying to get to its feet. There was nothing that he could do for it here. 

"Alright," Hank said reluctantly. He walked back over to the passenger's side and climbed back in. The truck slowly started back down the road. 

* * *

Hank walked back into camp with Bob's rifle slung over his shoulder. The deer had been dead by the time he had gotten back there. He probably could have ended the pain sooner if Dave had agreed to drive him back there. Dave had adamantly said he wasn't about to waste time by checking on a creature that was already dead. Besides, Dave had said, they had work to do. 

Hank couldn't get the picture of those brown eyes out of his head. Those brown eyes looking up at him, pleading for help. Soon those liquid eyes turned into the bright hazel ones of his son. They were still pleading with him. Hank shook his head to clear the thoughts. He didn't need to be distracted on the job. It's all he would need for a picture perfect day to have a two ton tree squish him flat, making his wife a widow well before she should. 

Hank had gotten to about the middle of the camp when he noticed something was very wrong. The camp was too quiet. Sure there were the common woodland sounds of the birds and animals going through their day, but there wasn't the incessant sound of chainsaws going or any heavy machinery working. 

Hank looked around camp. He didn't see anyone either. The hairs on the back of his neck were starting to stand on end. It was like he had just walked into an episode of that one show. What was it called? The X-Files or something? 

Out of the corner of his eye, Hank spotted a familiar pair of green work boots. Only one guy in all of the logging company wore boots like those. Vern was a big man with a laugh that could shake the very foundations of mountains. Hank jogged over in that direction. 

"Hey. Hey, Vern. What's goin' on he-" Hank's throat closed up when he made it over to Vern. The big man was not his normally jolly self. A look of sheer terror was frozen on his face. Vern's big, meaty fist was closed around the shaft of an arrow that had transfixed him to the tree behind him. The arrow looked to be shot right through the heart. Feeling his stomach start to rise, Hank backed away from the gruesome sight. His heel bumped into something behind him. 

Hank slowly turned with his eyes closed, praying that he had only bumped into a fallen log. When Hank opened his eyes, he felt his stomach roil again. Bob lay on the ground, arrow pierced through his heart. Bob was a small, wiry man who had always been the butt of many runt jokes told throughout the camp. But he had always taken those jokes in stride, his blue eyes sparkling in amusement along with everyone else. Now those blue eyes were dull and lifeless, staring into the canopy of trees. Hank started to back away, toward where most of the trucks were parked. 

**Snap.** Hank whirled toward the sound. The rifle unslung and in his hands. He leveled the barrel at the bushes where the sound came from. Trying not to let fear get the better of him, Hank tried to speak in his most commanding tone. It came out as a thirteen year-old's squeak. 

"Come out of there. Come out where I can see you." 

A pair of hands peeked out of the bushes, held up in surrender. A familiar figure rose out of the bushes. 

"Hank? Is that you?" Dave looked scared and worn. 

"Dave?" Hank had never been so happy to see his friend. The barrel of Bob's rifle dipped to the ground. "What's going on here?" 

Dave stepped out from behind the bushes and lowered his arms. "I don't know man. One minute we were jus' talkin' about nothing, the next this blond lady shows up and starts killin' people with a bow and arrows. She's been chasin' me through the woods. I think I lost her. Let's get out of here, Hank. I don't want to be here anymore." 

Hank nodded in agreement and started toward Dave's truck. Dave, himself, sped right past Hank. Dave was about five steps away from his truck when he stumbled and fell. Hank sped up to help his friend to his feet, but stopped suddenly when he saw the arrow sticking out of his friend's leg. Hank whirled with the gun raised, ready to fire. 

His finger froze in position, unable to pull the trigger at the sight that greeted him. A blond woman stood at the opposite side of the camp, an ornately carved bow in her hands. Her silvery blue eyes, raging with a righteous fire, met with Hank's hazel ones, and she lowered her bow. 

"You are a friend to nature. I deem you worthy to leave." 

Hank felt a lump form in his throat as the archer started to walk toward him. The lump continued to grow as she got closer, soon making it extremely hard from him to draw another breath. But this foreign woman didn't stop by him. She continued on beyond him, toward a scared silent Dave. Hank could only turn and watch as the woman crouched down next to his best friend. Fear had taken away the ability to do any more. 

She looked down at Dave with contempt. "For your crimes against nature and all her children, green or other wise, I find you guilty to utmost. The sentence for your most recent transaction is a slow death similar to the one you caused." The archer set her bow down and picked up Dave with both of her hands. She picked him up so that his feet dangled off of the ground. The fire flashed behind her eyes and she threw Dave bodily against the nearest tree. Hank could hear the loud crack of many bones breaking inside of his friend. Dave slumped to the ground with blood starting to trickle out of the corner of his mouth. Hank had a feeling that Dave was still alive, just broken to pieces inside and dying slowly. 

The woman bent over and picked her bow off of the ground. She turned to Hank. "A goddess does not keep her decrees for very long when one flaunts them. You, Hank Smith, best leave my hunting grounds before I change my mind." 

Not knowing how this lady knew his name or how she could be so strong, Hank nodded dumbly. The rifle fell out of numb fingers and Hank sped off into the woods, running away. _Has to be one of them goddamn muties._

The goddess watched Hank disappear into the woods and shook her head. Mortals seem to have gotten less intelligent in her absence. There was a small gurgle of protest from the one named Dave. Artemis just smirked at him and disappeared back into the woods, heading deeper into the forest. 


	5. CTMH 4

NOTE: Any views expressed by Pan about anything are definitely not my own. Pan's use of the word 'bounty' was the politest way I could find of stating his thought process. 'Sides what else would a god of fertility call it?

I've rated this R for Pan induced situations, which are kind of gross for people with vivid imaginations.

CAPS = loudness  
_italics_ = thoughts  
**bold** = sounds  
{-} = authoritive notes 

* * *

Climb That Mountain High - Part 4  
Beverly McIntyre

"Storm." Dakota shook the unconscious woman lightly by the shoulders. "C'mon. Get up." 

He quickly glanced around the forest surrounding him. There was no sign of the creature calling himself Pan, and Dakota fervently hoped there never would be again. He didn't want mental images of a naked satyr running through his head anymore. _Gah. Gross._ Dakota shook the passing nausea off and looked back down at Storm. 

She'd obviously been knocked out by something. Of course, nothing physically touched her, or at least Dakota had tried to prevent that. So if nothing physical happened to her, then it had to be some sort of mental energy or backlash. _Neatly making this something under Psylocke's area of expertise. So if it were a mental problem, picking up Storm will not have any repercussions. One less time I have to be scolded by Reyes or McCoy._

He carefully slid his arms beneath her back and just under her knees. When he positively sure he had a firm grasp on her, he picked her up like a forklift, resting her against his broad chest. Dakota turned to head straight for the mansion only to find a three-foot-tall, extremely irate satyr standing in his way. Pan sneered at him. 

"Release my prize or suffer the wrath of a god." 

Dakota was unimpressed, but he did have a problem. With Storm in his arms, he would be severely limited in what actions he could and could not do. Also, he tried to keep his eyes above the satyr's waistline. Somethings he just didn't want to see ever again. 

"No thanks. I'll pass this time," Dakota said as politely as he could under the circumstances. After all he was either dealing with a delusional mythological creature or a horny god. Either way, he still had to get Storm to the mansion. Dakota moved to step past the creature that was barely half of his height, but Pan stepped directly into his path. 

"Do not trifle with me, mortal." 

_'Mortal?' Boy, does this guy have a superiority complex._ Dakota looked down at Pan, who had his arms indignantly crossed in front of his chest, and found he was truly unimpressed. So far this creature had only managed to seduce Storm, admittedly through enchanted pipes, and survived being tossed in the air by a powerful wind column. Having lived with the X-Men for a few weeks, Dakota found these feats 'trifling.' 

"Sorry. I don't have any chocolates," Dakota replied glibly and once again tried to move around the diminutive creature. 

Pan, finding that his dignity was quickly being trod on by an oversized oaf, figured it was time to show this powerless idiot his true might as Lord of the Wilds. Of course, only after removing his prize from danger. It wouldn't do to have his mortal prize cease to live before he got his satisfaction. Pan uncrossed his arms and stepped in Dakota's path once more. He reached up to take his beautiful slave from the oaf. 

Dakota looked down at the grasping satyr, his well-worn patience evaporating into nothing. "I don't think so." Dakota, not having his arms or hands free to prevent the creature from getting any closer, used a well placed kick to send the satyr away from Storm. The kick landed in the center of Pan's chest and caused the satyr to crumple backwards. For the third time, Dakota tried to get past the satyr and toward the mansion. 

Pan could not believe this. This . . .this son of a WOMAN was disobeying a directive handed to him by a god. The only child of a mortal he even considered thinking above the level of a slug was Artemis, and that was only because she had beaten him several times for taking advantage of a few hapless nymphs. But this was not supposed to happen. The world had changed around him, but every mortal should know to respect a god. Especially one whom the word 'panic' gets its origins from. 

Dakota stopped after a few steps. There was this odd sound coming from behind him. It sounded like two boulders grating on each other. _This can't be good._ Slowly, Dakota turned back toward Pan. 

The goatman was pulling himself to his feet, eyes glowing with a malevolent energy. His lips were curled back away from his teeth which were slowly grinding against each other. Pan growled something inarticulate and lowered his head so the two small horns on top of his forehead were prepared to ram. He clawed on the ground with one cloven foot and reared. 

Like a little brown lightning bolt, Pan rushed at Dakota. The tall man only had time to turn slightly so Pan would ram his hip instead of his groin. The satyr came with hooves pounding the ground and fists pumping madly in the air. His hardened forehead connected solidly with Dakota's flesh and bone, sending the big man sprawling to the ground with Storm laying beneath him. But Pan had built up a godly amount of momentum and continued forward, hoofed feet stomping across Dakota's thighs with satisfying crunches. Pan sped forward until his head connected with a rather large tree. The satyr teetered back ward before falling hard on his hind end. He reached up and rubbed the spot where a knot was quickly swelling between the nubs he called horns. 

"Owwwwh." Pan rubbed that spot for a minute until the pain faded. A little wobbly, the god got to his feet. He shook a shaky fist at the tree while still rubbing his forehead with his other hand. "Why don't you watch where I'm going! Damned greenery!" 

**CRRREAK**-The tree trembled under the god's scorn, uprooted itself, and **-FOOM**- fainted dead away. Or so Pan liked to think. {Actually, the blow from a creature with a head hard as adamantium and rushing at a 'godly' speed would logically cause the tree to fall over. But no one really wants to ruin Pan's delusionsal visions of grandeur.} 

Pan turned from the frightened tree to a softly cursing Dakota, who was grabbing his legs in pain. The satyr smiled triumphantly as he wobbled his way over. 

"Now, hand over my prize." 

"Gee, that would be easier if you hadn't broken both of my legs, wouldn't it?" 

Pan's brow furrowed. He hadn't foreseen that possibility. With the big man laying over his hard-won prize, it would be hard to harvest her bounty. Well, he was a capricious Greek god who really had no whims. Maybe he could harvest this energetic oaf's bounty, too. He definitely was a fighter. Pan reached forward with an odd gleam in his eye. 

Dakota, being not too far off of the ground, saw that Pan was quickly becoming excited and hard as he reached for him. The pain in his legs suddenly became secondary to the new problem presented him: a horny satyr who suddenly was very interested in him. A lump the size of a grapefruit appeared in Dakota's throat as he tried to scoot himself backwards but found Storm's unconscious body was stopping him from getting very far. _I hate having a conscience._

Just before Pan's hand grabbed the front of Dakota's blue jeans, a raucous barking came straight out of the woods and right toward the satyr. Through the haze of panic, Dakota recognized Longshot's puppy, Yankton, just before she lunged right at Pan's haunch. Yankton had one of her masters to protect from an ugly creature, and she was not about to fail. Launching her tiny frame into the air, Yankton's jaw closed on the meaty part of Pan's leg. Her teeth sunk in as a growl ripped from her throat. 

The satyr yowled in pain at the sudden attack. He danced around on one leg while kicking with the other to disengage the tenacious puppy. Yankton just clamped down harder on his leg. Pan stopped dancing around and reached down to grab the little menace. He drew his hands back quickly when clawed feet swinging wildly connected with his hands and took off quite a bit of skin. Pan looked at the golden blood slowly welling on the back of his hand and the blood pouring down his leg. He snarled at the small, black-furred warrior. 

**Snikt.** Pan looked up from the puppy to see a yellow and blue man-animal emerge from the woods opposite him. Six bony claws emerged from his hands. 

"If you think that dog's a scrapper, wait 'til I get ahold o'you, bub." 

Pan looked from the man-animal to the puppy still clamped onto his thigh. One of them had to be taken care of before he could turn his attention to the other, then he could do justice to his prizes. Moving faster than before, Pan reached down, managing to avoid the flailing paws, and ripped the black-furred puppy from his haunch. More golden blood poured out of the wound, but Pan put that to the back of his mind. He hoisted the puppy up and threw her toward the sturdiest looking tree he could see. 

Wolverine was fast, but he knew he wasn't fast enough to catch Yankton before she became a pancake against that tree. Wolverine growled as he launched himself at Pan. 

Yankton yipped as she flew rather quickly, end over end through the air. This was not a sensation she did not enjoy. She saw this big blur coming right at her and let out a yowl of fear. Before she and the blur could become fairly intimate, a pair of familiar hands plucked her out of the air. 

Longshot, with his eye glowing brightly, set his puppy down on the ground, where she began to pee all over the place. As luck would have it, the only spots she missed were the ones Longshot's feet were in. He looked up from his frightened puppy to the creature who scared her so. With firm determination set in his jaw, he pulled out one throwing spike. A faint, white glow surrounded the spike. No one was going to harm his little companion. 

Pan turned in time to see man-animal just before he was tackled. Kicking with his one good leg, Pan felt a few ribs give under a barrage of body blows. 

Wolverine rolled away from the satyr. He had underestimated this thing. But all he needed to do is get the ground back under his feet. He had smelled the brewing trouble when he and Longshot had stepped out the mansion to do a little practice. Yankton must have sensed it, too, because her ears perked up just before she lit out for the woods. Wolverine had followed the puppy's scent to find the half-man, half-goat creature with an acute case of Yanktonitis on his thigh. Logan looked past the satyr to see Longshot step out of the shrouded woods with one throwing spike in his hand. _What is that kid up to?_

Longshot threw his spike in one fluid motion, luck and skill guiding it to its target. Straight and true, the spike connected with Pan's midsection. With a bright flash and loud boom, the energy held in the spike released, blowing the satyr right off of his cloven feet. Pan flew backwards, disappearing in a blinding flash of golden light before even hitting the ground. 


	6. CTMH 5

Boy, have a sibling get married and you end up with little time to write! 

NOTE: In the precedence set by the ancient Greeks way before me, I proclaim this work to be 'epic' [at least in scope]. _Darn you, Homer!_

_italics_ = Mental notes

* * *

Climb That Mountain High - Part Five  
Beverly McIntyre

The zephyr kicked up snow, sending small flakes of white dancing across the colorless plain. The flakes swirled and danced around a lone figure trudging through the snow. Spiral's boots crunched through the white blanket drifting up to her knees. She has huddled down, against the wind. She paid no attention to the flakes that danced around her, seemingly mocking her their grace. Wrapped like an inadequate cocoon about her torso, her six arms desperately tried to hold in any heat left in her slight frame. Despite her arms' objective, she was bitterly cold and hollow inside. The only warmth found was the fire of rage that burned in her eyes. 

She had no recollection of how long she has been here, trudging through the snow, but with one glance over her shoulder, she observed the seemingly endless trail of footprints that slithered up behind her. She had no idea how long since she actually felt warmth because every second in this forsaken land seemed like an eternity, but she did know who put her there. That was what kept her moving instead of collapsing to let the white overtake her. 

Hecate had discarded her to this cold abyss. The Titaness had cavelierly claimed that she had fulfilled her part of the bargain. The Lord of the Greek Gods would not find Spiral in this cold abyss. _That's no small wonder. No one would look for anything in this bleak hell._ Hecate had disappeared right in front of Spiral after proclaiming the deal done, using a dance that was lopsided yet too familiar to the six-armed woman. 

There was no escape for Spiral. Hecate had somehow managed to leech all the mystical knowledge and power from Spiral's body in one pain-filled moment. Then she had casually discarded Spiral into a snowdrift. The absence of power was distinctly felt as a gaping hollowness right behind her ribcage as the Mistress of the Wildways trudged onward. There was no quick dance to get away from the keening winds. No simple incantation to keep the cold at bay. All she had was a hollowness at the very pit of her being. 

The frigid wind changed direction, blowing white hair into rage-filled eyes. Spiral cursed as she reached up with one hand to brush the windswept locks off of her face. Her arm snapped back into place before her five-fingered hand could get very far. The cold was biting her harder now. Stumbling on numb legs, she tried to squint through her hair. _Of all the hair colors the bloated bag had to give me, he had to give me white. Rot his eyes. Rot them clean out of his sockets._

Her blazing eyes swept the horizon, searching for any change in the bleak landscape. Nothing. Nothing but flat white land under a white-sheeted sky. Moving onward, Spiral tried once again to find some vein of mystical energy left inside her, something Hecate missed. Her inner probing found no power, only fragments of memories of the person she used to be before Mojo 'perfected' her. Stifling the memories and shoving them back into the little locked closet of her mind, Spiral continued on. 

_'Look at the little dancer. All alone and wanting her lil' Longshot.' _

_Shut up. _

_'Can't do anything to save her skin. Can't get her way out of this one. Or can she? Find out next time on _Spiral_22_.'_

_Get out of my head, Mojo. _

_'See this is exactly why that lucky son of Arise is my biggest star while you fade into the darkness. He can get himself out of these things with a sense of panache.' _

_GET out of my HEAD. _

_'He wouldn't be trudging around. He'd already be out of there, back at home snuggling by a fire with the world's greatest stuntwoman.'_

"Get out of my head," Spiral growled through gritted teeth. She began to breath through her mouth like a rabid dog, each breath trying to force the incessant voice of her former employer out of her head. Saliva exhaled with every breath froze on her lips. 

_'See. Look at those ratings. My thorn-in-the-side could pull in triple that.' _

_Mmmrr. Leave me alone! _

_'Why don't you go open a dance studio? Maybe teach a few kids to tap dance. That's about all you're good for. You can't even pull in good ratings anymore.' _

_I'll show you! I'll show you! _

_'Look at that pitiful thing, Domo! Left powerless by someone who hasn't been on the face of this miniscule planet for over three thousand years! Talk about funny! This could be our next great comedy. We'll call it:-'_

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Spiral's scream screeched out over the whiteness as she fell to her knees. She breathed in frigid air in gasps, making her lungs feel as if they were being sliced open by thousands of tiny knives. Cold wetness attacked her bare thighs engulfed in the snow. The continual tirade of Mojo continued unabated in her head. 

She hunched over, trying to dim the voice in her head but only managing to make herself smaller in a vast landscape. She bowed her head against the arctic wind that blasted over her. Her white hair fluttered in snow-encrusted wind. 

"Leave me alone," she whispered hoarsely. Her voice was carried away by the howling wind before the sound could even reach her ears. 


	7. CTMH 6

DISCLAIMER: Was laid down mightily way back at the beginning of the Prologue and still stands. All things recognizably Marvellian belong to them. No money. No litigation, please. Greek gods belong to the world at large or to people so long dead that they're dust. Dakota, Yankton, and other assorted people peppered throughout the story belong to me. 

FEEDBACK can be sent to bkittle@creighton.edu. Notification of archivement [Can I possibly make up any more words?] should be sent to that address also. 

_italics_ = Mental notes 

* * *

Climb That Mountain High - Part 6  
By: Beverly McIntyre

The phone ringing halfway across the mansion cut through the deadened haze in Storm's mind. Groaning slightly, she stirred underneath the down comforter, not really wanting to get up but having the feeling she had to anyway. Not many of the mansion dwellers would stop what they were doing to answer the phone, especially since they now had a working answering machine hooked up. Ororo was almost tempted to let the machine pick it up, but an niggling sense of propriety urged her to get up. It was not entirely right to let the machine do all the dirty work. Slender and graceful fingers grabbed the edge of the comforter and peeled it off of her body. The cocoon of warmth that had been around her body dissipated into the chilly air of the room. Shivering slightly, Storm unconsciously raised the temperature around her to a more pleasant level. 

The phone continued to ring, echoing like thunder between her ears. _Goddess, isn't there anybody home who could answer the phone?_ Dragging herself out of the bed, Storm quietly exited the room. The gunstock club hanging next to the door rattled on its loose mountings as she shut the door behind her. 

* * *

The unmistakable sound of four clawed feet scrambling on a hard wood floor preceded the small black blur that whipped around the corner. Storm had about one second to move out of the way before the blur ran straight into her shins. Quickly side-stepping, she watched Yankton scramble halfway down the hallway before making a quick turn and disappearing into one of the rooms behind her. She smiled faintly at the small puppy so full of energy, but that smile disappeared as the phone rang again and thunder reverberated through her skull. 

Rubbing her temples in the hopes of soothing the immense, on-coming headache, Storm continued toward the phone. _Shouldn't the answering machine have already started?_ Obviously not as the phone rang again. Gritting her teeth against the lancing pain in her temples, Storm picked up her pace. 

She had just made it to the end of the hallway when the phone started to ring again. She moved her hands to cover her ears, hoping that she could at least muffle the sound. But the ringing stopped abruptly. 

"Hello? We don't want any." 

It was unmistakably Longshot's voice. Storm paused. 

"Oh, hi Timoth! - No. Dakota can't come to the phone right now. He's unconscious. - Well, he begged Betsy to knock him out. And she wanted something to do, so she did." 

Storm got a slightly horrified look on her face. What was going on? Why was Psylocke knocking Dakota unconscious? Glancing out a nearby window, she saw that dusk was quickly approaching. Last she knew, it had been a little past noon, and she had been helping Dakota clean up a N'Garai carcass. What was going on here? 

Longshot's phone conversation continued on unabated. "He was in a lot of pain. Cecilia and Hank didn't have any anesthetic or something ready for him so he begged Betsy to knock him out. - Uh-huh. - Both of his legs got broken by a goatman. - Yeah. Normal heroic stuff. - GLORI? - I don't think Dakota's up to it, but I could take some of my friends with me to go get her. - Now, where is she? - Athens? Where's that? - Greece? I don't- Okay. Somebody ought to know. Thanks, Timoth. - Bye." 

Longshot had just set the phone down into its cradle when Storm came around the corner. "Storm! You're awake!" Genuine happiness and concern shown on his face. "You had us worried there for a while. We thought that goatman had done something awful to you. Well, I mean something else on top of what he already did." 

"Goatman?" Storm could not remember anything about a goatman. This was a most disconcerting chain of events. 

"Don't you remember? That creature, umm, you know . . . What did Wolverine call him?" Longshot looked thoughtful for a minute and then snapped his fingers. "A satyr. That's what they're called." 

Storm vaguely remembered something about Dakota seeing a satyr out in the woods of the estate, but that was all she could remember. In fact, she couldn't remember how she had ended up back in the mansion. _What is going on?_ Her memory ended shortly after Dakota mentioned seeing a satyr. 

She glanced down at her clothed body to see that at least physically she was fine. She saw nothing out of the ordinary, no external signs that anything had been inflicted upon herself without her knowledge. She looked back up at Longshot, uncertainty and confusion in her blue eyes. "What did this satyr do to me?" 

Longshot looked worried. "You don't remember?" 

"No. I have no idea what you are talking about. I have no idea how it became so late in the day. I cannot remember anything after noon." Frustration roiled in Storm. Thunder cracked outside as Storm's headache worsened. Longshot looked out the window with a worried glance. "I have team members knocking each other unconscious, and I don't know why. I would like some answers promptly." 

"Storm, it's going to be okay." Longshot held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I understand. I'm usually the one with amnesia. Remember?" Longshot grimaced slightly at his word choice but plunged on. "We'll get some answers for you. I promise." 

Storm looked at her dear friend and realized a calmer head would prevail. All the recent events that had befallen the X-Men, such as the gutting of their home, the inclusion of Marrow into their ranks, the fact that Professor Xavier was missing, and the 'loss' of Gambit had piled up on Storm. She was a leader and had inherent responsibilities to that post, like trying to sooth those around her while juggling her own worries. It was now she realized she had been trying too hard to quell everyone else's fears while not paying much attention to her own. 

"I'm sorry, Longshot. It's just that we X-Men have been through so much recently that I haven't had time to sort out my own feelings." 

"It's okay," Longshot said with a shrug. "I've had some pretty bad days myself. Just ask Dakota. Like when I first met him, I ended up being chased by a group of these angry men." 

"Oh, really?" 

Longshot smiled as he continued to tell the story about possessed men and the torches they carried. The pair of X-Men moved away from the phone and toward the room some answers were located. It was also the room in which Dr. Reyes and Psylocke could be heard to be arguing on the finer points of making a patient unconscious. 

* * *

Storm sat back in her seat, leather apolstry creaking at the shift of weight. She glanced out of the the small round window next to her as she absently tugged on the left sleeve of her uniform, pulling the cuff back down around her wrist. _Back on the move again,_ she thought absently as she heard the jet engines start up. _Then again, when are the X-Men not on the move?_

She wasn't entirely too sure she should be on this jet, waiting to go to Greece, but Longshot had asked her to come along when he had informed the X-Men present inside of the mansion he had to go to Athens right away. He had said he had a friend who was probably in trouble, and he needed to get there as quickly as possible. He asked Storm, in particular, and the others if they wanted to go with him. He asked it as a favor of them, and Storm felt obliged to go with him after he helped her fill in the gaps in her memory. She now knew what had happened from the point she lost all recollection of the events around her to the point she had awakened. There were still some points that were fuzzy because Dakota had been the only witness to them and he had still been unconscious when they had left the mansion. Storm could wait to talk to him upon her return from Greece. So far, it seemed nothing more tragic had happened to her was the splitting headache she had gotten afterwards, which was readily taken care of by Cecilia. 

"So when are we gettin' this bucket o' bolts movin'? Ah could get out an' run ta Greece faster'n this," Rogue said as she peered out the window over Storm's shoulder. The Southern woman looked out across the airfield to where Longshot stood, talking to a dark-suited man. 

"We will be underway shortly," Psylocke said from behind the two X-Women. 

Rogue looked over her shoulder at Betsy as the jet engines roar to life and raised an eyebrow. 

"The pilot has just gotten his orders." 

Storm watched as Longshot sprinted across the airfield toward the jet. His long strides were taking him away from the dark-suited man. The man watched Longshot bound up the stairs to the jet three at a time. When Longshot had made it inside the jet, the man turned and walked toward a waiting limo. His long, unbound black hair whipping in the wind behind him. 

As the as the platform of stairs moved away, the door to the jet shut automatically, shutting off the only source of fresh air. Storm felt something inside of her twitch at the thought but stifled it. Just because she could be riding in a big metal coffin that was vacant except for them and the two pilots . . . 

Storm suddenly found she preferred to fly on her own to Greece. Her own way in the vast, open blue sky. She could have created her own jet stream to get her there quickly. She could have taken Longshot with her since he weighed very little. But that would leave Rogue and Psylocke far behind because Rogue could not ride the wind anything like she could. 

No, it would be best for everybody just to fly to Greece in a jet. It would give both women something to do since Rogue and Psylocke had been going stir-crazy inside the mansion while most of their male team members were out scouring the grounds for any sign of if the satyr was still there. Storm had not been too sure what the grounds for the decree that all women had to stay within the mansion were, but she had a definite feeling it something to do with her encounter a few hours ago that she couldn't remember. 

Rogue moved over to one of the chairs across the aisle from Storm as Longshot made his way toward them. She propped her feet up on the arm-rest of the seat in front of her and mumbled something about it being about time. Psylocke sat down in the seat right behind Storm, relaxing slightly. Longshot plopped himself down in the aisle seat next to Storm. He looked over at Storm and smiled reassuringly. 

"Here we go," he said cheerily with a waggle of his eyebrows as the jet started to roll forward. 


	8. CTMH 7

DISCLAIMER: Spiral is Marvel's. I'm using her without their permission, but I am using her with her permission [if I didn't she'd get really ticked]. I am making no money off of this. PLEASE don't sue. 

FEEDBACK is heartily welcomed at bkittle@creighton.edu 

NOTE: I'd like to thank Sabia for giving me the heinous idea contained within. You're just evil. ;) All pompous speech is on purpose. And finally, there are some end notes at the [duh] end.

* * *

Climb That Mountain High - Part 7  
By: Beverly McIntyre

White clumps of frosted hair danced in front of Spiral's burning eyes as she lurched her way through yet another snowdrift. The incessant prattling inside of her head continued, but she used it as background noise, something to let her know she was still alive. Something she would make Mojo pay for after she ripped Hecate's spine out and did a merry little dance on it. 

Spiral lurched forward on frozen legs to pull herself free of the snowdrift. Stumbling forward she continued on. She had to get somewhere. Somewhere out of this nowhere. Squinting at the horizon, or what she thought was the horizon, the six-armed woman searched for anything that stuck out. 

Her eyes had nearly missed it. They had been so used to the pervading whiteness around her that the small black bump in the otherwise dominating bleakness was almost missed. There was something out there other than snow and clouds. 

Spiral let out a gurgled whoop through chapped lips as she stumbled more quickly. Her six arms pulled away from her body and grasped out toward the little black spot. Pulling her arms back to her body as a cold zephyr whipped about her body, she plowed into another snow drift. She threw her body forward and lifted her numbed knees as high as they could go to get through the drift. She floundered through the drift as the little black dot got closer and more distinct. 

It looked as if the black shape on the horizon was a ramshackle hut. Spiral pushed herself harder. There was a flicker of human hope inside of her. Instead of pushing it back down, she grabbed onto it with all the tenacity she could manage. She used the energy given to her from that hope to speed up her stumbling gate. Somewhere inside of her she expected the clouds to part and the sun to shine down onto that little hut. For the first time in her existence, Spiral thought there could be salvation. 

Salvation came for her. It came in a blinding flash of light. She fell to her knees as seemingly the clouds did part and the sun shown down on the nearly pristine snow. Struggling with snow-blindness, Spiral looked to the sky with two hands partially in front of her eyes. Looking away from the dazzlingly white snow, Spiral noticed something strange. The clouds had not parted but the sun had come below them. Eyes watering, Spiral watched the ball of golden light hang in the sky for a second before arcing toward the ground. 

She followed the ball of light with her eyes for as long as she could, but when it got to close to the snow-laden ground, she had to close her eyes against the dazzling brightness. The light flashed once, intensely. It was so bright she could she the veins in her eyelids. Then the ground roared underneath her legs. A wave of concussive force knocked her on her back. She gritted her teeth as she slid across the white snow, the chill biting her skin. She slid into the snow drift she had just exited from mere seconds ago and became enveloped in the white cold. 

She just lay there for a second, entertaining the thought of giving up. A brief flash of memory flashed before her eyes. _He_ was smiling at her. _He_ was reassuring her that they could do this. Mojo would fall. His blond hair and glowing eye marking who he was. Spiral opened her mouth to scream. _He_ was her enemy. She hated _him_. She HATED him. 

Her scream never got very far as when she opened her mouth she got plenty of snow in it. Gagging, Spiral used all six arms to fight her way out of the drift. Emerging triumphant and a bit whiter, Spiral pulled herself to her feet. 

She squinted toward where the ball of light would have crashed into the ground. There was a gigantic crater where the comet had made landfall. Spiral felt her heart stop when she looked beyond the crater and was unable to see the ramshackle hut anymore. She stumbled over toward the crater. It had to be there. She wouldn't accept it not being there. Maybe she was still dazed from the snow-blindness or her eyes were just playing tricks on her. 

Spiral stopped at the edge of the crater. She held two hands under her eyes to try to cut down on the glare from the snow. Her eyes watered as she squinted so hard just to see the debris of the hut strewn on the far edge of the crater. 

She growled. Somebody was using her as a punching bag. Her first inclination was that the fat blob was playing tricks on her to get higher ratings, but she pushed that idea aside. He was already giving her a headache, and he would be satisfied with that for a little while. The voices in her head became louder in protest. 

_Shut up._

Chastised, the voices went back to their dull roar in the background. 

_So if the spineless idiot isn't playing with me, who is?_ She had a list of people who would want to torment her. The list was too long for her just to stand there in the freezing winds and figure it out. So she revised the list. People who wanted to torment her and were powerful enough to do it. One name blazed at the top of the list: Hecate. 

The Titaness, it appeared, was not done with her. No, it was not enough to take all of Spiral's mystical powers away from her, including the energy she had accidently siphoned into herself atop Mount Olympus. Now, the malevolent being was playing games with her, forcing Spiral to latch onto things like hope that she had no need of before. 

Spiral glared down into the crater but wiped the glare off of her face when she spotted something at the bottom of the crater. There was a glowing, golden person lying at the bottom. The corners of Spiral's mouth turned up. _Looks like somebody fell off of her stolen horse._

Spiral launched herself down the slope of the cliff. The sooner she got down and ripped her power out of the Titaness, the sooner she could leave this hell. She slid down the side of the crater on the flats of her booted feet. Her sense of grace fully returned by her rising sense confidence. Sliding like an assassin's knife across a throat, Spiral reached the bottom of the crater. 

When she stopped sliding, the Mistress of the Wildways sauntered toward the stirring human-shape, confidence fully restored. She stopped next to the body, noting that Hecate seemed to have lost her bone shard armor and was now clothed in a toga, a pair of sandals, and a golden, laurel leaf crown. Spiral sneered at the prone Titaness as she kicked her in the side with a snow-encrusted boot. The Titaness rolled with the kick and quickly got to her feet. Spiral leveled a deadly gaze at- 

"LONGSHOT?!?" The being standing opposite of the six-armed former human was definitely not the Titaness of Magic. The blond man standing across from her was tall, blond, and achingly beautiful. As Spiral stood slightly stunned by the appearance of her nemesis, 'Longshot' got a good look at her. 

"Kali," he hissed. Spiral just raised an eyebrow. This was not the first time she had been called that. "You're the one responsible for this. You shall learn not to trifle in the affairs of the Greek gods." 

'Longshot' gestured and a golden bow of exquisite beauty appeared in his hands. As he raised it to aim at Spiral, she dove for his knees, hoping to knock them out from under him. The golden man leapt out of her way with speed entirely inhuman. He landed gracefully behind her. He turned and fired in one fluid motion. The arrow passed through the prone Spiral and stuck into the frozen ground. 

Apollo smirked at the dead goddess of death. "Hades is a better god of death. He would never have been so foolish." 

Apollo's smug expression fell faster than a shooting star when he saw Spiral stir. He became even more dumbfounded when she pulled herself off of the ground with the arrow still stuck in the ground. 

"Well, I'm impressed." Spiral muttered as she dusted off the snow off her legs. 

Apollo couldn't believe it. There was not even a mark to show the arrow had even touched her let alone run right through her. "This-this is impossible. The bow knows my thoughts. You, Kali, should be dead." 

Spiral had thought about a witty rejoiner but decided against it. This 'Longshot' had already tried to kill her once. She wasn't about to give him a second chance. 

Spiral launched herself at the stunned god. She latched onto him with her six arms. Bringing a knee up into his groin, she heard him give an inarticulate grunt. She released him and watched him stumble backwards bent over in pain. He looked up at her just in time to see a nasty uppercut coming his way. He tried to dodge out of the way, but Spiral effortlessly changed tactics and used her silvery bionic arm to land a smashing blow against his temple. Apollo's head snapped to the side, and he crumpled to the ground. 

But Spiral was not done with him. She had been through hell today and somebody was going to pay for it. She walked over and grabbed the back of his toga just as a golden glow enveloped him. The glow spread like wildfire over her body, and before she could release Apollo's body, both of them disappeared. 

The cold winds of Siberia died down as a lone figure clad in bone shard armor glowered down into the crater. 

* * *

End Notes

[1] Yes, I am saying that the Greek pantheon has knowledge and relationships with other pantheons. 

[2] Yes, I heartily believe Apollo does not get along with deities of death, no matter what pantheon they come from. 

[3] Yes, when I first dropped Spiral into the frigid wasteland, I called it the Middle of Nowhere. But some parts of Siberia can be classified as the Middle of Nowhere. 


	9. CTMH 8

DISCLAIMER: What's Marvel's is Marvel's, those would be the recognizable ones. No profit is being made from the weaving of this story. Please don't sue. 

FEEDBACK: Can be sent to bkittle@creighton.edu

* * *

Climb That Mountain High - Part Eight  
By: Beverly McIntyre

Storm was starting to feel distinctly uneasy. As the jet neared Greece, she felt that something was distinctly not right. Looking around the cushy interior of the jet, she could see that nothing was wrong. Rogue had dug up a deck of cards from somewhere, and she and Psylocke were teaching Longshot how to play poker from the looks of it. They were using some peanuts that Longshot had found earlier instead of poker chips. Storm looked away from the game and toward the cockpit. Nothing seemed amiss there. The usual sounds of pilots doing their normal routine floated back past the door that was slightly cracked open. Finding nothing wrong, Storm leaned back in her seat, the leather creaking at the shift in weight. _I feel something is wrong, but I cannot place it._

"So Longshot, why are we rushin' ta Greece?" Rogue looked up from her cards as she plopped down three peanuts into the growing pile in the center of the small table. "See your one an' raise ya two." 

Longshot studiously looked down at his cards as Psylocke met Rogue's bet and raised it another two. Five peanuts were riding on a hand of nothing but Ace high. He mulled it over as he counted out the peanuts, trying to remember the lessons Wolverine had tried to give back when they were in Australia. 

"Well, we need to find someone and get her out of there." 

Rogue and Psylocke exchanged glances. 

"Her?" Longshot nodded to Psylocke. 

"Mm-hmm. I'll see your five and raise you four more." Now, that the pressure was off him, he looked up from his cards. "She's in Athens." 

"Athens? Well, that makes this slightly better than the entire country," Psylocke said as she drummed her fingers on the table, waiting for Rogue to decide on whether she would continue on raising the stakes or call the bet. She looked over at Longshot, asking the question that she knew was on everybody's mind. "Is she anybody we know?" 

Longshot would have been blind not see that one coming. He had kind of expected it. He had been nearly silent about Dazzler and her absence from beside him. He still had things to sort out. When he got those straight, he would talk. For now, he had to figure things out on his own. 

"No, but you know her brother." 

"Oh? And who would that be," Storm asked a little distractedly. Something was wrong and she still could not place it. 

"Dakota," Longshot said as he watched Rogue call his bet. Rogue looked up at him, slightly startled. Storm stopped trying to find what was wrong and looked at Longshot curiously. Psylocke remained in a neutral posture but did feel the stirrings of curiousity. 

"Dakota has a sister?" Rogue asked. 

"Well, actually, he has three, but Gloriam is the one most likely to get into trouble," Longshot said as Psylocke called his bet also. He sighed. He obviously had missed something that Wolverine had told him. 

* * *

Zeus paced in front of the cave on Mount Olympus. Hermes was taking longer than expected. Zeus felt his stomach grumble. He looked down at his abdomen and patted it lightly. 

"Mayhap, I can find something to put into you." He looked around the barren little clearing in front of the cave and found nothing edible. Hrmphing to himself, he scanned the sky for something he could bring down and cook with just one lightning bolt. He squinted at a great silver bird in the distance. _That should be enough to feed me._

Zeus pulled a jagged shard of energy out of the 'bolt' case strung at his side. He pulled his arm back and threw the lightning bolt with godly accuracy. He watched his bolt of lightning screech across the sky and slam into the flying silver bird with explosive effects. 

* * *

Storm sensed it before it had hit. She felt the stray lightning bolt rip across the sky and smack into the jet. She had felt it coming and could do nothing to stop it. Not that she didn't try, but this lightning bolt was not like anything else she had encountered. Most lightning bolts required the thunderclouds that normally produced them. The sky that the jet had been flying through had been absolutely clear, not a cloud in the sky. She vaguely remembered feeling this way when she had been near Thor on one of his occasions of thunderbolt throwing. 

The lightning bolt didn't dance across the wings of the jet like it was supposed to. Most jets, and planes for that matter, were designed to be capable of taking a lightning strike. The wings were made to take the lightning strike and harmlessly funnel it out the other wing, leaving the fuselage and the important electric enquipment inside alone. This lightning bolt avoided the special construction and slammed into the bottom of the of the fuselage with a tremendous crack. 

The fuselage buckled inwards at the raw power of the lightning stroke, rending the jet near the cockpit. The bolt of intense electricity surged through the rent fuselage and coursed straight into the cockpit. Storm heard the agonized screams of the pilot and copilot as the lightning bolt danced around in the cockpit, turning their bodies into cooked meat in a manner of seconds. 

There was an explosion as the cabin quickly depressurized. Time dilated for Storm as she watched in horror as Longshot was ripped from his seat. The force of depressurization was too great on his light-boned body. Storm reached out and tried to keep him in the jet with a small cyclone. But she was too late. She watched in paralyzing horror as her dear friend disappeared out of jet through the hole created by the lightning bolt. 


	10. CTMH 9

**Note:** Well, look! I'm actually creatively alive! Sorry about the length of time between this and the last part. Side projects jumped into the way. Anyway, if you wish to look up the previous parts, this story is archived on a whole bunch of pages. E-mail me and I'll provide a complete list. 

**Disclaimer:** The X-Men and affiliated people belong to Marvel. I'm using them without permission but at no profit. It's all just good clean fun. Dakota, Yankton, and Gloriam are mine.

**Note part duex:** This part makes this story the longest one I have out there, and it doesn't appear to be stopping any time soon. 

**Feedback** can be sent to bkittle@creighton.edu

**All-Important Dedication:** This one's for Sabia.

* * *

Climb That Mountain High - Part Nine  
By: Beverly McIntyre

The object of the X-Men's interrupted trip to Athens ambled around the room, snatching up the last of her tacky souvenirs. She crammed them in the already overstuffed suitcase. Grunting as she tried to hold the contents in and zip up the suitcase at the same time, Gloriam managed to keep her clothes, books and souvenirs from exploding back all over the room. Finally zipping the suitcase completely closed, she stood up and wiped her brow. _Y'know, it figures that the last day of my stay would be hell in Athens._

Gloriam's chocolate-colored eyes scanned the Mediterranean-styled suite for anything she could have forgotten. Nothing remotely jumped out at her, but that didn't mean she hadn't forgotten anything. _There's probably a sock hiding somewhere, mocking me._ She absently reached up and rubbed the little crook in her hawkish nose as she paced around the suite. _There has got to be something I'm forgetting . . ._

What it was eluded her. She ticked off all she needed on coppery fingers. She remembered everything. _Good God, what am I missing?_

A scream and a loud crash wafted in through a partially open window. _Oh, yeah. That._ Athens was in chaos. After the quick circulation of the appearance of a towering Zeus on Mount Olympus, a tremor of something uncertain had rippled through Athens. The appearance of a mythological figure who had once ruled over all of Greece, sent many of the organized religions into a frenzy. But the common people were less affected by the sudden appearance. They could shift it off as another one of those "superheroes" grandstanding again. Besides, Mount Olympus was a bit far from Athens to be worrying about it. But the tremor of unease stayed under Athenian lives for a few hours before exploding into chaos.

She had fallen out of the sky like a golden comet, falling right into one of the ancient temples dedicated to her. The ground shook under Athenian feet. A camera crew doing a sound bite about the sudden appearance of Zeus nearby rushed over after gaining their feet back under them. What greeted the Athenian audiences when they focused on the front steps of the Parthenon took their collective breath away. 

She had stumbled out of the ancient temple that had managed to mysteriously not be harmed by her impact. She wore a resplendently white toga underneath a molded golden breastplate. The golden greaves on her shins had an owl exquisitely etched into each. Her body was well-built and sinewy. When she looked up and the camera focused on her face, anyone who was watching was mesmerized by her pure beauty. Loose ringlets of dark hair framed a classically perfect face. Her skin had a slight olive tinge to it. But her most amazing feature was the storm-grey eyes. The eyes that seemed to hold the weight of wisdom behind her penetrating gaze.

Gloriam had been watching the emergence of Athena on a TV in a store window. For a second, all was deadly quiet in Athens, as if the rebirth of a new era had just begun. What broke the silence was a crazed scream. On the television, a man dressed only in a bed sheet draped on him like a toga appeared out of nowhere. He screeched at the top of his lungs as he pulled a knife from out of the folds of his linen toga. With a ground-eating pace, he charged at the emerged goddess. Athena straightened up as he got closer and drew herself up to her full impressive height. The man screeched the name of the God of War and lunged at her when he was close enough. Athena simply side-stepped the attack and back-handed the loon on the chin.

It was then that Gloriam wished the camera crew didn't have such an effective microphone. Anyone who was watching could hear the man's jaw shatter as he was lifted off of the ground. The camera kept morbidly on him as he flew across the courtyard and smacked head-first into an ancient pillar. His head burst open like an overripe melon, and the formerly sturdy pillar swayed on its sound base before crumbling over atop him. 

Gloriam could vividly remember the look on Athena's face as the camera slowly swung back her direction. There was no remorse, no pride, only pity for a fool who would dare to take on a goddess. 

Things had spiraled considerably downhill from there. The citizens of Athens, seeing their namesake walk the world once again, snapped as a collective whole. Now the streets of Athens were ruled by looters and rioters. The police had their hands full just trying to keep government officials safe. The armed forces were called in to protect the ancient buildings that had become central targets for a mob of destruction-bent Greeks. Athena had disappeared after the dust had completely settled from the toppled column. 

Gloriam just wanted to get home. She didn't care about any ancient goddess returned to earth. She did care that the looters and rioters had canceled all flights in and out of Athens by over-running all public airports. Any military ones were busy scrambling units to check on the appearance of Zeus atop Mount Olympus. 

Gloriam sighed. Life had just decided to get weird on her when all she wanted to do was go home to the Badlands. Of course, her actually wanting to return to the res was another sign that she was sure meant she was unhinged somewhere. _Well, it's home. And probably a whole hell of a lot calmer there than it is here._

She was left to find her own means of escape. She looked over at the overloaded suitcase sitting on her unmade bed. _That's just going to be a bitch to fly over the Atlantic . . . _She absently played with the end of her raven-colored ponytail. She was still in the midst of indecision when she noticed something slightly odd.

Everything outside the window had gone as close to silent as it could get. She squinted out into the Mediterranean sun, across the rooftops of nearby buildings. No skyward sign of a reason for calm. She careful walked up to the window and glanced down toward the street.

There was a dark tangle of people standing in the middle of the thoroughfare, choking the bottleneck street. In front of the group stood a very poised woman in golden armor. Gloriam strained her ears to hear something, anything from down below. All she could hear was the chaos razing through the city only a few city blocks away. If there were words being exchanged, she couldn't hear them. 

The woman appeared to be talking to them but was halted by an abrupt screech of "LIAR!" A rather well dressed man emerged from the group. He was tall, dark, and well bearded. He was greatly muscled under his dark blue suit. The thing Gloriam couldn't remove her eyes from, even at the distance she was presently at, was his eyes. His eyes burned and smoldered with an inhuman rage, a battlelust. 

Whatever he was saying was whipping the crowd behind him into a frenzy. They started jeering the golden-armored woman as the big man talked. He pointed an accusatory finger at her and the crowd couldn't take it anymore. They surged past the large man and enveloped her in their midst. The center of the mass roiled as she fought back against the clawing and grabbing hands trying to drag her to the ground.

_She's gonna get herself killed if she doesn't get herself out of there . . . _Gloriam had had few moments of heroic measure in her life. There really was no need living on the res and working for her brother in-law's business. But this was a situation that she couldn't ignore and let somebody else clean up. There might not have been a large streak of valor anywhere in her body, but there was still one there. 

Reaching up with a glowing hand, she unleashed a blast of energy at the window. The lance of energy met the window and passed right through it, leaving the glass and metal construction relatively unharmed. The blast continued to travel outwards and passed across the street until hitting a pigeon that had landed for a brief rest on a ledge. The pigeon was flash-fried in a matter of minutes and plopped over dead on the ledge.

It was then that Gloriam remembered why she didn't act on those altruistic impulses. She always did a fair job of botching it up. Gloriam sighed and looked over at the balcony doors. She knew she should have used those instead. _Dramatics be damned._

Rushing over, Gloriam flung the doors open, threatening to tear the door well off it's hinges. She stepped out on the balcony right into a breeze bringing the scent of burning city to her nostrils. Sighing and tugging on an inner pool of energy, she lifted herself off of the balcony and hovered over the tangle of chaos. She looked down into the roiling mass and couldn't see her objective.

_How do the Avengers make this look so easy? Well, one easy way to get this crowd thinned out . . ._ With hands crackling with red energy, Gloriam began randomly using low-powered burst to drop people on the fringes of the group into a state of unconsciousness. Rather quickly, somebody noticed their numbers dropping off slightly. There was a shout and the action paused for a moment. The mob as a whole looked up at the floating woman in the air. _'Bout time they noticed the woman floating in the air . . ._

"All right, step away from the goddess. Do so and I . . . er, Kickyourbuttus, Goddess of the Bio-charge will let you go unharmed." She had no idea if they understood a word she was saying for most of what she heard people speak here was Greek to her. They had paused long enough for Athena to bat a few off of her so she could stand up straight. As soon as the dark haired goddess grew slightly out of the crowd, Gloriam swooped down toward her. The knot surged toward the goddess, but Gloriam laid a suppressive fire of bio-burst. They fell back enough for her to swing low enough to grab the goddess by the waist. She grunted slightly when lifting Athena off the ground. She may have been a goddess, but she wasn't exactly light.

"If you don't mind, child. I can handle myself."

Pulling the goddess out of the enraged mortal mob and ignoring Athena's protests, Gloriam noticed the dark suited ringleader hanging toward the back. He scowled in her direction before fading away right before her eyes. Gloriam had little time to care as bricks and various other bits of debris whizzed by. Veering upward, she sped around the corner of the building. She continued to barrel through the air, with a goddess starting to struggle against her all too mortal grip. 

"Look, Athena, isn't it? Stop struggling! You may be a goddess, but I'm willing to bet you haven't been hit by bullets before."

"We have slings in my time, child."

"Yeah. I bet. But no guns unless Hephestus did something really cool outside of his mother's throne." 

Athena stopped struggling, opting for the wiser move of braining this overly helpful woman when they weren't airborne. Gloriam abruptly turned around the corner to the backside of the building and veered straight up, making Athena more or less drape herself over her left shoulder. Making it halfway up the side of the building, Gloriam found a balcony with an open door. She quickly flew up and over the railing. Landing carefully, she quickly set down the goddess returned to Athens. 

"Well, there you go. Gloriam's finest ferrying service." Gloriam cocked a half-smile as Athena smoothed out her toga. 

"Charon could do much better." 

Gloriam's smile faded at the comment and also what she heard coming out of the open door. 

_Oh, God. I had to pick one that had a couple in the heated throws of passion, didn't I?_ She let out a large sigh and looked around for another balcony nearby with an open door. All the nearby balconies looked locked up tight and she was in no shape to fly that heavy goddess anywhere. _Okay, if we quickly scamper across the room and hope to whoever that they are more intent on each other than on two grown women coming in through the balcony . . ._

"Okay, O Goddess of Wisdom." Gloriam reached back and grabbed the slightly warm hand of city's namesake. "Let's go."

Pulling Athena through the billowing curtains and into a room filled with moans, groans, and pants of breath. Athena stopped in her tracks. 

"Oh, my . . ." 

Gloriam urgently tugged Athena along. So far, the couple hadn't noticed which is to say they would soon if both of them just stood there gawking.

_When they meant virgin goddess, they meant virgin goddess . . ._

* * *

Longshot was in an odd situation. A minute ago, he was lounging in his comfy seat on a private jet. Now, he was plummeting away from it at a rather alarming rate. He was finding it also kind of hard to breathe with the sudden change in pressure. He had aerially maneuvered himself as best he could, so he could see where he was actually going. Smiling, he watched the pretty scenery rush up at him: the beautiful waters of the Mediterranean and the coastline of Greece sticking out at him. He wasn't unduly worried. His luck would hold out and he'd live. And he had to get Dakota's sister back home safe and sound.

He flattened himself out, giving the air more resistance to slow his descent. Just as he did this, a green blur shot right past his shoulder. 

"Longshot!!" The blur kept going for a few hundred feet before abruptly stopping and shaping itself into a baffled Rogue. She looked below her then back above her. 

Longshot smiled and waved as he plummeted closer to her. Rogue flew up and met him part of the way. She gripped him tightly and used her flight ability to slow him down slowly rather than turn him into paste by abruptly stopping his descent.

"There ya are, sugah," she smiled. "Plannin' on parachutin' without a parachute?" 

"No. But this was kinda neat. 'Sides I knew you'd be here to catch me." Longshot looked into her eyes with all due honesty.

Rogue blushed slightly. "How about we get back up ta the jet an' help Storm an' Betts as much as we can."

"Sure." Longshot wrapped his arms around Rogue's waist to keep himself well anchored to her. Rogue, in turn, tried to keep her heart from racing too much at his touch just before Longshot cried out. "Rogue! Watch out!"

They had just started back toward the jet when something big and human-shaped rushed past them. Zeus, King of the Gods, batted the two insects out of the air. Sending the tangle of the two bodies flying a godly distance away and into his Greece while he reached for his prey.


	11. CTMH 10

DISCLAIMER: The X-Men, Longshot and any affiliates of Silver Sable International belong to Marvel. I am using them without permission, but at no profit whatsoever. This is a tale told entirely for entertainment. Dakota and Yankton belong to me, and can only be used with my expressed permission. The Greek gods belong to well, the Greek and the rest of the world at large.

NOTE: After a long absence I return (to this series)! [Blame Dr. Bakewell and Ancient Greek History.]

Feedback can be sent to bkittle@creighton.edu 

* * *

Climb That Mountain High - Part Ten  
By: Beverly McIntyre

Cecilia Reyes stood at the big bay windows, watching the sun sink into the horizon. The golden light washed through the glass and brushed quietly across her face. She felt the last rays of warmth slowly withdraw as the sun finally plunged beneath the treetops. She sighed, eyes searching the treeline for any movement. Most of the male X-Men where still out on the grounds, searching for any signs of the creature that had attacked Storm and Dakota earlier. Wolverine seemed the most adamant about being absolutely positive that the satyr was no longer on the grounds. 

Wolverine said something about smelling strong pheromones so the women were stuck in the mansion. Reyes hadn't quite understood his explanation, but after an abbreviated explanation from Longshot about what happened in the woods, Cecilia was more than willing to let everybody else go tromping through the estate grounds while she stayed indoors with the rest of the female team members. Except that most of the ladies didn't stay in the mansion. Rogue, Psylocke, and Storm had left with Longshot to go pick somebody up from somewhere. They didn't really say much before they rushed out. 

Cecilia frowned. Storm's departure was entirely against her better judgement. The weather-controlling mutant had been through an ordeal not more than seven hours ago. An ordeal where she came back to the mansion unconscious. If Cecilia had known that she had been leaving that soon, she would have used all of her doctorly might to keep Ororo in the mansion and in bed until Reyes could be reasonably sure that nothing was wrong with the X-Woman. However, as it was, Cecilia learned of Storm's departure ten minutes after she left. 

As the room dimmed with the further disappearance of sunlight, Cecilia reminded herself that she did still have a couple of patients to check up on. She turned from the large window and walked through the empty library. Her footfalls echoed off the barren shelves. Cecilia shivered slightly. When Bastion decides to clear everything out, he clears everything out. The X-Men had tried to refurnish the mansion, but things were still sparse. 

Cecilia didn't like the emptiness one bit. Give her the hustle and bustle of a crowded ER over this hollowed out shell any time. She shivered slightly as she stopped outside a door cracked open slightly. A small trickle of light streamed out into the hallway. 

* * *

The bow of the Triton's Point cut through the swelling waves. Salty spray making the slickered crewmen even damper. They scrambled to batten everything down. The old freighter wasn't as modern as most ships and the cargo hold doors had a habit of flying open if not secured properly. As many sinewy men ran from cargo hold to cargo hold, a grisled old man limped out from the cabin. His gait was unsteady but the rolling deck fit his hobbled stride perfectly. One of his gnarled hands was inside his slicker, holding something tightly against his chest. 

One of the scrambling crewmen stopped, wiping the water from his green eyes. "Where's that dag think he's going? Those cargo holds're already secured on the starboard side." 

"Don't mind the old Greek," shouted another man over the raging wind. "He's too old to be of any use at the moment anyway. Now, come on. The wind's already whipped one the doors open. They'll need some extra hands." 

As the two Australian crewmen raced across the wet deck, the old man hobbled up to the slick rail. He lurched with the ship as another wave crashed over the deck. Cold water slushed past his dingy boots as he grabbed onto the railing with one gnarled hand as the other disappeared further into the flap of his rain slicker. He pressed the package closer to his heart, letting his life beat through the waxy paper. 

He leaned over the railing slightly, against the howling wind. His craggy voice lost in the storm's frenzy as it flowed over words burned in his memory. The ancient Hellatic syllables spilled forth, fighting with the sea for dominance. He slowly drew his other hand out of his slicker, bringing a greasy packet out into the saturated air. 

"Earth-shaker, please forgive this meager offering. But it is the best I can do until I reach land, by your providence." Shaky hands unwrapped the offering while trying to keep an old body on board by rather frequent grabs for wet railing. However, when the wrapper finally came apart, he lofted the two kilograms of horsemeat in the air slowly. Giving one cry of reverence, the old man tossed the offering into the sea just as another wave smashed against the deck. 

The wave had risen up in front of him and smashed him backwards across the deck. He writhed there for a minute, trying unsuccessfully to get back to his feet. His battered, old body was having none of it; it was content to just lay on the deck. He managed to roll onto his stomach as a cry screeched across the wind. With a flash of lightning, old, rheumy eyes caught sight of a wave cresting ten feet over the deck. 

"Poseidon, save me." 

The wave pounded over the deck, catching the old man in its wake. The crewmen watched in helpless horror as the wave receded and the old man was nowhere to be seen. 

"Man overboard!" 

"Forget him! That dag was nothing but a superstitious idiot! Get in! Get inside before another wave comes along!" 

The crewmen scrambled across the deck, keeping something solid nearby for something to grab onto. Most had made it halfway across the deck when the ship stopped bucking. 

A few men blinked in surprise at the suddenly calm ocean around the ship. The wind died down to the merest of breezes. Each man looked around at his compatriots. 

"Holy shit!" 

Every head turned toward the bow as a frightened crewmember scooted bodily backwards. His heels tried to dig into the deck to get him back to the cabin faster. 

Standing above the prow stood two majestic horses in front of an ornate, golden chariot. The horses were finely muscled and looked to be carved out of the purest white marble. The pair loomed over the prow, pink eyes glaring down at the seamen. However, what held the men's attention stood behind the horses, in the chariot. 

Poseidon, God of the Sea, looked down upon the Australian men with eyes of unfathomable blue. His long, white hair and beard was woven with bits of kelp. A luminescent trident pointed down at the crewmen, the muscles on Poseidon's arms rippled like strands of swaying seaweed. When the god finally spoke, his voice sounded as powerful as the waves that had been crashing against the ship's hull. 

"I have watched your progress across my waters. I have waited for my offerings with a patience unheard of for a god. You have no claim for safe passage. I have claimed the one worthy soul aboard as redeemable. Perish by the waves you live by." 

* * *

Douglas Powell sauntered into the rec room of the Symkarian castle that was the base of Silver Sable International. The muscular American was fresh out of the showers after a particularly intense training session; Sable was worried her Wild Pack was becoming soft since the Intruders, her recently-formed super-powered team, were taking on some of the equally super-powered assignments. She feared complacency would work its way into her regular teams and had worked the thought of any easier time out of everybody's hide today. Powell could swear the tip of his ponytail hurt from the intensity today. Pushing any further memory of the day's events out of his mind, Powell crossed the room and snatched the remote off the top of the big screen television. With a bowl of popcorn neatly tucked under an arm and a six pack of Budweiser dangling from his fingers, he slid over to the couch. 

He carefully plopped down and flicked the television on. He settled the bowl on his lap as he cycled through the channels. He stopped his rapid-fire channel changing when he hit ESPN2. Powell breathed a prayer of thanks for Quentino-created satellite dishes. Powell hadn't had any decent programming since Ms. Sable decided working anywhere in the States had to be profitable enough for her to even *consider* taking a job there. 

He thought of his cousin, Sam, who was now working double-time to smooth the relations out between the U. S. government and Silver Sable International. Sable had a very dim view of things in the Unites States since her arrest and incarceration. _Wonder how much Sam likes beatin' a dead horse? 'Cause when Ms. Sable makes up her mind, it's almost entirely made up for good._

That thought didn't bode well with Powell himself. He still had to change Sable's opinion of him enough to get her into bed with him. He had doubled his bet with Sandman for a time extension. Powell had six more months to try and saddle that philly. Though it seemed like Sandman was feeling pretty confident that he was going to win the bet; especially since some noticeable sparks had happened between the man made of sand and Ms. Sable recently. Munching on a handful of popcorn, Powell was unconcerned about that development. The sparks had cooled just as quick as they had appeared. Besides, all the Southerner had to do was turn on his natural charm. Sable would come around soon enough. 

Powell's musing cut themselves short when he noticed what was going on in front of him. He had tuned into the finals of the World's Strongest Man telecast. The gimmick this year was running it live so no leaks about the winner would happen. The current contest was the keg toss. Filled kegs, with water Powell presumed because that would be an awful waste of beer, were being tossed over a twelve-foot high wall. The man who got to the highest point and got the keg over, won. Currently, some Native American man, named Chief Little Bear was vaulting a barrel easily over the 12 foot mark. _There's nothin' *little* 'bout this man. Biggest Indian Ah ever seen._

There was a commotion off-camera. As the camera whipped around toward the commotion, a tall, mountain range of a man was shoving his way through the crowd. His immensely broad shoulders were covered by a cloak made up of some sort of animal pelt. Strong arming passed the security, the bright, Icelandic sunlight glinted off of golden gauntlets and arm and leg bands. _Which history book did this fella fall outta?_ The wind tossled the intruder's curlly black hair as he strode toward the towering wall. 

The stranger bellowed something in some foreign language. Powell couldn't quite place it; it sounded like Italian, Greek, or something. The dark-haired man's deep voice rolled through the speakers like a thick miasma. 

A large hand reached forward, fingers crunching into the metal keg. With a one handed, overarm toss, the barrel sailed over the wall with a good 50 yards of clearance. The man turned toward the crowd, and grinned ferally. Chief Little Bear, who had been standing next to the wall, looked a bit intimidated as two treetunks that counted as arms swung up in a gesture of victory. More foreign words rolled out from the grin over the dark beard. 

Herakles sighed when it was apparent none of the spectators had understood what he had. Dropping his hands to his sides, he concentrated. Unlike the most of the pantheon, he had never been verbally adequate outside of the Hellenic dialects. It took him a minute to form the foreign words on his tongue. 

"You call yourselves the strongest men in the world." He paused, the English words sounding disorientating to his own ears. "I challenge all of you to prove your strengths against the strongest man to ever walk the mortal realm." 

Herakles grinned down at Chief Little Bear. The chief looked up and feinted dead away. 

Powell lurched to his feet, sending the bowl of popcorn clattering to the floor. "Sable's gotta know 'bout this." 

He didn't know what she would do about this incident, but Powell figured his boss would do something helpful. After all, Sable could use the good PR. 

* * *

Yoshikuni Takuya removed his hard hat and banged against the safety railing in frustration. The day had gone from stellarly progressive to abysmally halted. The production line had been moving at a great pace. 'Had' was the operative word. During the lunch break, some, he guessed American, stranger had managed to wander into the factory. 

The man walked with a distinctive limp as one of his legs was slightly shriveled. However, what the man lacked in mobility, he made up for in upper body strength, or so Yoshikuni witnessed when the man hefted one of the finished cars off the line to look underneath. 

The factory foreman grimaced as the large stranger toppled another car off of the line. Glass crunched over the audible silence of an entire factory of workers holding their breath. Yoshikuni ground his teeth together in frustration. Where was security? They should have already removed this trespasser from the grounds. 

Yoshikuni smacked his hard hat against the railing again in aggravation. If nobody was going to do anything, it was now his duty as factory foreman to get rid of the limping disturbance. Sucking in a breath of canned, factory air, he made his way to the metal steps down to the production line floor. Putting his hard hat back on his head, he carefully made his way down the stairs. His shoes making small, clanking noises down each step. 

Each step was becoming harder to take as he got closer to the bottom. This stranger was large, rivaling some of the biggest sumo wrestlers. Yoshikuni felt positively small and he was still only halfway down the steps. 

The stranger was pulling the hood off of a car the hard way when a small task force of security came sprinting around the corner. They skidded to a halt as a black-painted hood whipped over their heads. As a unit, they paled, but the man Yoshikuni noticed as the head of security stepped forward. There was a slight tremor in the chief's hand as he shouted at the stranger. 

The stranger ignored the warnings and continued to poke around inside the toppled car. The chief nodded at the rest of his unit. They carefully approached lowering their hands to their corporation-issued batons. The chief took his baton carefully out of its holster and carefully slid up behind the gargantuan man. He gently poked the man in the small of his back. 

One meaty fist slammed into the security chief's chin, sending the man flying back into the rest of his unit. The security team scattered all over the floor like broken pins, slamming into metal and concrete. 

Yoshikuni swallowed hard as the stranger turned back to the car he was slowly dismantling. He glanced over at the groaning pile of security flesh. An entire team of trained men had just been taken down by one swipe of the stranger's hand. How would he fare any better? In his mind, he wouldn't, but the responsibility of getting the production line back in order fell to him. Swallowing the enormous lump of fear lodged in his throat, the foreman staggered leaden feet down the last of the stairs. 

The factory was eerily quiet. Every sound Yoshikuni heard was muffled except for his own footsteps and breathing. His hard-soled shoes clacked up behind the quiet dings and groans as the out-of-place man continued to take apart the Lexus. The factory foreman hesitated. 

He could muscle his way up there, but looking at his rail thin arms, he doubted he would ever be more effective than the security team was. That was a team of six trained men; he was just a foreman. If he couldn't move something by yelling, he'd order somebody else to move it. Of course, the most qualified people to move this particular obstacle were at the moment, either unconscious or rolling on the ground groaning. There had to be a different track to take. What would work on a large, yet gimpy-legged man who was systematically ripping the parts out of a Lexus? 

Hephaestus yanked another component of the mysterious contraption out and eyed it critically. It wasn't made all that sturdy as he crushed between his thumb and forefinger. He could make something stronger on his forge . . . wherever his forge was. He had been working on the next intricate piece of craftsmanship, a mechanical owl for Athena, when there was a bright flash and ungodly pain; he had come to consciousness inside this rather large building. The best he could figure was that this was some large temple to the Great Crafter. While it did flatter Hephaestus, it left him rather confused as to how far the Athenian movement toward more civil-themed buildings rather than mythological ones had gone. 

The god of metal-working blinked when he felt a polite, yet insistent poke in the small of his back. Straightening up as much as his hunched back would allow, Hephaestus turned around to find nobody behind him. He heard the slight shuffle of feet and looked down, spotting a short mortal. The black-haired mortal began yammering in some tongue that the lame god could not quite understand. _I'm a crafter, not a linguist. How does this small man expect me understand him?_

Sighing to himself, Hephaestus concentrated. It took a few minutes but the words began to make sense. After a few minutes, the god of the forge smiled down at the factory foreman. 

The corporate vice president flung the doors open, walking out to the assembly floor. He had received a frantic phone call from the factory foreman in the middle of his afternoon massage. After dragging himself out of the expert hands of the masseuse, he got his rubbery legs moving. Now, he was in no mood for any delays in production. If he didn't wrap this up soon, the CEO would come down on his head like a storm blowing down from Mount Fuji. 

Walking with a stiff-legged gait that was supposed to convey power and decisiveness, but with the massage-induced weakness currently, it made him appear as a suited duck striding down the hall. He spotted a hesitant-looking security officer standing in the hallway. Cutting to the chase, he marched up to the nervous-looking man. 

"Where is he?" the VP asked imperiously. 

The security officer began to noticeably sweat. "Who?" There were several 'he's of importance in the factory at the moment. 

"The intruder." 

"He's in the foreman's office, sir." 

"Good. The security chief has detained in the office?" 

"No, sir. The foreman has him in there; the security chief is in the infirmary." 

"The infirmary? Then who handled the intruder?" 

"The foreman, sir." 

The vice-president blinked and started toward the foreman's office. From what he could remember of Yoshikuni, the foreman had little presence and an even smaller physical stature. The foreman got the job done usually, but vice-president didn't pay attention to the particulars. The one personal meeting that he could remember, Yoshikuni struck him as an overly-fretful pipecleaner of a man. The vice-president boggled at how such an unremarkable man could have handled a problem he had previously begged the VP to handle. 

Striding down the hallway, the rubberness had finally worked its way out of his legs as he drew closer to the glass door. Through the misted glass, Yoshikuni could be spotted fluttering around a massive bulk that hunched over the desk as the factory foreman excitedly continued to lay large sheaves of paper down in front of it. The vice-president paused outside of the door and noticed the bulk had ringlets of dirty brown hair. 

Without preamble, the vice-president swung the door open. He was greeted by a pair of blazing eyes set in a quite homely face. 

"What do you want?" Hephaestus voice rumbled over the vice-president at the cellular level. 

The vice-president stood in the doorway, shaking. "N-nothing," he managed to stutter before quickly shutting the door. His hand shook uncontrollably as he removed it from the polished metal handle. 

This situation was a bit beyond his control. The vice-president staggered slightly down the hallway, toward the nearest phone. 

* * *

End Notes:  
[1] I have watched the World's Strongest Man contests. The barrel toss is a staple event for the more recent ones, I believe. 

[2] In naming the foreman, I went with Japanese standard of surname then given name, i.e. McIntyre Beverly. 


	12. CTMH 11a

Disclaimer: Marvel owns the X-Men, Longshot, and the associates of Silver Sable International. I am using them without permission, but at absolutely no profit [just for the joy of story-telling]. Dakota, Yankton, Gloriam, and Sashen'ka are mine and I gave myself permission to use them as I'm so magnanimous. The cat-man belongs to my brother [TemplarWarr@aol.com] and is used with his permission.

Notes: For those of us with comic books dating back a couple of years, the entire Broken Palisades timeline veered off of Marvel continuity around UXM #351 and never quite looked back. This story takes place pre-Psi-War [which truly dates this, huh?].

Feedback is craved and can be sent to: bkittle@creighton.edu

Dedication: For Persephone. For never giving up on me.

* * *

Climb That Mountain High  
Part Eleven  
By: Beverly McIntyre

Pierce and Elba Newman had been married for 25 years. A long 25 years by Pierce's reckoning. As a treat for themselves, or because Elba really wanted to, they had decided to celebrate it with a cruise around the Greek isles. So far, they had enjoyed the historic pleasures of Thera, Crete, and Lesbos. Currently, they were enjoying the scenic Cyprus. There had been some tours offered by the cruise line, but the couple had declined to take any one of those options. They had decided to travel the countryside on their own, experience the local color directly rather than diluted through a tour guide. They had found a scenic grove of pomegranate trees and were now trying to get Pierce's brand new video camera to work. It had worked fine in the store, but now the picture was flashing and jumping around. He slapped the side of the camera in the hopes that it would jiggle something into the right place; the picture cleared up as if nothing had been the matter.

"Elba-dear, move more towards those trees there." Pierce waved her to the left, his silver, anniversary-present Timex flashing into the frame. "Yeah, that's good, dear. Now, how does this damn focus button work?"

"Like a switch, press down one side and it zooms in, the other zooms out," Elba offered helpfully. She pushed her over-sized purse, more like duffel bag to Pierce's mind, onto her hip and tried to pantomime how to do it. 

Pierce looked over at her and snorted. Not even on vacation could he avoid getting henpecked. "Okay, I got it. Now wave to the camera."

Elba waved cheerily at the camera, the crow's feet at the corners of her light green eyes deepened as she smiled. Pierce focused on his sun-dappled wife but paused when his shot caught some movement off further into the orchard. He had thought they had been alone. Maybe it was some locals harvesting or something. That would be good footage to show the kids. 

Pierce swung his camera out a bit and zoomed in. There was thankfully some light coming from over there. As the view in his eyepiece got unblurry, Pierce nearly dropped his camera. He blinked and adjusted the focus in and out, not quite believing what he was seeing. When his camera settled back into a focused picture, Pierce stared at the scene in front of him in disbelief.

A woman radiating warm light walked beside a pale-skinned man clad in dark, horrifically jagged armor. They moved regally through the orchard as tree branches slowly moved away in their own volition. The woman held gently onto his dark arm as they strolled casually.

"Pierce, I'm over here."

"Sshhhhh." Waving frantically with one arm for Elba to quiet down, Pierce focused the picture more, sharpening the couple strolling in front of him.

Persephone smiled slightly as her husband stopped with a thoughtful look on his face. "Is something awry, milord?"

"Do you not feel it?"

"Feel what, husband?"

"The amount of life," Hades muttered.

Persephone had felt it but had deigned not to mention it. There were no qualms about who was the most powerful between Hades and his two brothers. Zeus was most certainly the most powerful, but there was a brotherly struggle between Poseidon and her husband for the next platform of power. 

"My power wanes," he said flatly. "The realm of the dead is . . . losing ground."

Persephone looked up, into his burning eyes. "Worry not, milord. I doubt your brother is faring any better." She looked pained. "Man is strangling life away."

"Uh, Pierce?" Elba sounded slightly worried as a twig snapped on the other side of her husband.

"_Quiet,_" he hissed as he focused more intently on the scene he was capturing.

Hades gently gathered his wife's chin in his hands and gave her a ghostly smile. "Forgive me if I do not share your pain. It is my responsibility to take this grimness and mold it after the veil of living has slipped away."

"Milord is forgiven," she said with a slight smile.

The corners of Hades' lip turned inward slightly, as much of a grimace as he would ever show. "Were it that easy with Demeter, I would fare better."

Persephone laughed lightly and reached for a branch overhead. The branch slowly extended down to aid the goddess. She plucked the fruit from its burdened wood. The branch then slowly went back up into it's former position. "Is that not the eternal problem? Getting along with one's mother-in-law?"

"I should have known the size of my own sister's wrath," he commented idly as he watched the pomegranate ripen in his wife's hands. It slowly reddened in her luminescent hands. When the fruit was at its peak of ripening, Persephone pushed her thumbnail into the skin. The red peel gave way easily under her thumb, as she slowly pulled the fruit apart. The juicy pulp splashed over her hands. Quietly, she offered up the fruit to her lord, the whisper of a mischievous smile gracing her lips. 

"Uh, Pierce," Elba interjected, tugging on his shirt sleeve. "_Maybe_ you should _stop_ taping, honey."

Pierce waved her away distractedly and wondered when she had moved over to beside him. Rather than think too long on that, he continued to record. "Quiet, this is good."

A ghostly smile creased Hades' stoic visage as she raised the seed-covered fingertips to his pale lips. Pierce tried to zoom in closer but a growl near his elbow made his blood run cold. Slowly, he turned to the sound. His camera lense was filled with three bloody snouts showing maggot-infested teeth. Shaking slightly, Pierce lowered the camera.

Cerberus snarled thrice over.

Pierce let out a womanly shriek and ran back towards the road. Elba's eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she fainted dead away.

Cerberus stopped snarling and tilted its three heads. It jogged forward and sniffed the unconscious mortal. Deciding she was still alive, it snorted and jogged away. Live flesh tasted foul anyway.

* * *

Cecilia Reyes paused outside the plain, wooden door in front of her for a minute. She quickly took stock of her supplies in her black bag. Checking to make sure her stethoscope was still in one piece, she remembered when she'd thought she would never have to use it. The bag and supplies had been a gift from her mother and brother when she had graduated from med school. Her family hadn't been particularly wealthy, so the gift meant a lot to a woman who *had* to put herself through med school because there was no money to spend outside of necessities. She had nearly refused the gift at the time, knowing full well what her brother would have to have been selling to afford it. Now, she was minorly grateful that her pride had relented. However, she had every indication that the man on the other side of the door was not going to be grateful at all.

Giving a light, warning knock, Cecilia swung the door open. "All right, Mr. Worthington, let's make this quick and easy."

Warren Worthington III was pulling himself into a wheelchair as the light from his room filtered into the hallway. He cast a dour glance at the doctor as he finished situating himself in the chair, pulling his legs onto their leg rests. "At least you've learned to knock," he muttered not quite under his breath.

"It only takes me seeing your spindly, blue butt once," Reyes said as she set her black bag on a nearby dresser. She pulled her stethoscope off her neck. "How are you feeling?"

"The same as I felt four hours ago when you last visited: annoyed."

"Are you this easy-going with McCoy?" Reyes asked as she began her cursory inspection of his wings. They had healed rather miraculously after being burned to well done crispy strips. So far, the healing seemed to be complete, but Reyes had her doubts. According to Hank, it was nowhere in Angel's genetic make-up to heal *that* fast. There had to have been some outside force involved somewhere. Hank had suggested Apocalypse and shown her a picture. To her, the picture looked like an over-grown Smurf with Steven Tyler lips.

"No," Angel sighed. "I'm much worse."

The wolfish grin that followed did nothing to hearten Reyes. If she were to fit in with the spandex crowd, which she had no intention of doing, she'd have to get used to this. ~New girl on the block has to put up with this stuff anyway. I did this when I left Chicago for New York; I can do it here.~ 

"Look, I'm fine. Why do you and Hank have to keep checking up on me?" He sounded exasperated. More than likely that was due to being forced to stay on the ground. After nearly taking Maggott out with his leg casts via a clumsy airborne maneuver, Hank had told his friend to stay on the ground until they were sure his legs were well on their way to healing. 

"Considering the nature of your hollow bones, there are complications in healing the break cleanly. Are you feeling any pain?" ~If I had wanted to take care of a parakeet, I would have become a vetrenarian . . .~ she thought dismally. ~At least their squawks wouldn't be as annoying.~

Warren looked down at the doctor crouching near his legs and snorted. Reyes had the sudden hope her patient wasn't telepathic. 

* * *

Gloriam walked down the hallway trying to get the imagery of thrusting buttocks out from under her eyelids. She decided that next time she breaks into an occupied room, she wanted it to be filled with gangster-types armed to the teeth ready to blow her away in an instant rather than into a room with a man with a very hairy butt having a jolly time with some lady who had equally hairy legs. Doing a full body shudder, Gloriam checked over her shoulder at the virgin goddess who had seen just as much as she had. _Maybe more if goddesses have higher sense of perception,_ Glori thought to herself with another shudder. _Ew. Ew. Ick._

Athena just kept blinking like she had been for the past five minutes. Glori wondered if the goddess was going to suddenly snap and break her neck for making divine eyes witness . . . that. Rather than tempt fate, or the Fates if they were back as well, Glori tried to make a little conversation.

"My room's not far now. Just around the bend and two doors down on the left. Or was that right? Well, I remember the room number so it can't be all that bad, right?"

Athena blinked.

"Right. Look, Athena, are you alright?"

Athena blinked again. Before Glori could open her mouth to say something further, the goddess clapped her hand over the half-opened mouth. "Be quiet. I'm almost done."

Glori watched as Athena blinked for about a minute more before gently tugging the powerful hand away from her mouth. "Almost done what?"

Athena blinked once more and then looked at Glori. "Removing the memory from my mind."

"Oh! Could you do that for me, too? I don't think I could stand to see that flabby butt moving up an' down an'-"

Athena gagged and then put a hand over her eyes. "Thank you ever so much, mortal. In a few heartbeats, you have undone what I've been trying to do since leaving that den of iniquity."

"Den of iniquity? It was just two very not-nice looking people having sex."

"It was a married man and his mistress. Be thankful I'm not Hera or you would have to clean them both off the wall with a spoon."

"Ah, that would be bad. Very bad." Glori looked down the hallway and then back at Athena. "So could you rid me of that memory? So I don't have nightmares about it for the rest of my life."

"I could try. If for nothing else than to get you to leave me alone long enough to burn the memory from my own mind." Athena placed a hand over Glori's eyes and paused.

Glori suddenly realized how stupid she was being. This goddess could just vaporize her in a second and she was just standing there going to let her. 

"You . . . you are . . . not pure." Athena took her hand away from Glori's face.

"Beg your pardon? My soap is 99.44% pure."

"You are not a virgin."

"Well, duh, what woman at my age is?" Glori looked at the goddess and then realized exactly who she was talking to. "Uh, sorry. My room's this way. C'mon. You can veg out there to get rid of the accursed tryst there." Glori started to walk away. "Heh. Accursed tryst. I kill me."

"Kickyourbuttus."

Glori kept walking until she realized Athena was talking to her. The goddess was using the name Glori had smirkingly used with the lynch mob outside. The mutant woman paused and looked over her shoulder. Athena had not moved to follow. "Huh?"

"Why did you help me?"

Glori stopped and turned around. "Dunno. I think that crowd looked too big. Even for a goddess."

"I would have survived."

"Look, Athena, it's apparent you somehow made it to the 20th century in tact. But I don't think you've been in the 20th century long enough to be able to survive it. And with that reddish guy with dark hair whipping that crowd into a frenzy, I don't think you could have done much except make the situation in all of Athens worse."

Athena's eyes narrowed. "What reddish man with dark hair?"

"The guy in the dark suit towards the back. He had dark hair and reddish skin. Kinda like mine but more red."

"Ares." Athena cursed and did an about-face.

"Whoa. Hold on." Glori rushed the couple of strides and grabbed Athena's arm while her mind said don't do it, you fool. "I did not save your butt from that crowd for you to go traipsing back out there to get said butt kicked from here to New York."

"Unhand me. You do not understand."

"Don't understand what? That you and Ares hate each other? No duh. It's in just about every book on Greek myth."

"**Myth**? I am not myth."

"Well, obviously not as your standing here in front of me, but to the rest of the world, you are. Even with that excellent TV coverage you got earlier, the rest of the world thinks you're a myth. An object of worship in time so long ago that . . . so long ago that . . . damn. I forgot what I was going to say." Glori shook her free hand in the air. "It doesn't matter what I was going to say anyway. It's just that you're from a time so far out of today's consciousness the only people who believe you actually exist are labeled lunatics."

"Why would people who worship me be considered Artemis' followers?"

Glori sighed and slapped her palm against her own forehead. "Not what I meant."

"What did you mean?"

"Just come with me. I'll explain everything from the semi-safe confines of my hotel room before we skedaddle out of here."

"Skedaddle?"

"Escape," supplied Glori as she tugged Athena down the hallway.

"I do not need to escape. Athens is my home."

"Honey, I'm getting tired of this. We need to get you a reality check and fast."

"But-"

"Hairy butt between hairy legs."

"Ack!" Athena began to blink again.

Glori smirked to herself. At least that had shut her up for a bit. They just needed to get to Glori's room and then get out of here. Athena stiff-leggedly tromped behind Glori as she tried to once again get rid of the image of an adulterous couple in the throws of passion.

The door to her room ended up being around the corner and four doors down on the right. Glori was thankful that she had at least remembered the room number. As she dug around in her pockets, she was thankful that this whole thing would be soon behind her. Glori's face fell as she continued to dig around in her pockets for something that was obviously not there.

"Oh, crap."

"What?" Athena said between blinks.

Glori sighed and gently pounded her head against the door. "The doorkey is in my room. On the corner of the dresser nearest the TV, I believe."

Athena stopped blinking. "I can handle this."

"What? Took care of the memory already?"

"No, but it will give me something to do while you yammer on once we're inside that door. Now, step aside."

Glori stepped aside and sighed. She wondered how much she would be charged for the broken door. Timmoth was not going to be happy with the bill that showed up on his desk for this. Oh no, Glori could see herself doing a month of extra jobs to cover this.

Athena reared her fist back.

"Wait!"

Athena grunted in frustration. "Now **what?**"

"Sshh! Don't you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"That sort of high whistling sound. It sounds like it's getting closer."

Athena paused. There was indeed a high-pitched whistling sound. Like something was moving very fast in this direction.

"Why do I have a bad feeling about this?" Glori said as she looked up at the ceiling for some sort of answer. The ceiling remained quiet.

Athena's eyes widened. "Take cover."

Glori looked around. "_Where_?"

Athena stepped in front of Glori as the building shook around them. Glori fell back against the wall as the wall in front of Athena buckled and snapped open. Timber and plaster smacked into the goddess. Gasping, Glori tried to get to her feet but the building was still shaking. 

As suddenly as the building had started shaking, it stopped. Glori waved the plaster dust out of the air in front of her and stood up. "Athena? You okay?"

Glori's answer was cough and a glint of golden armor turning around. "I am fine. However, I think your wall has been in better shape."

"Oh, shit! My room!" Squeezing around the goddess, Glori tried to get into the room through the new opening rent open. She found herself not getting far as Athena had a firm grasp on the back of her pants.

"Wait. It may not be safe for you to enter."

To emphasize the point, somebody coughed on the other side of the opening. Bringing up hands glowing with energy, Glori backed away from the broken wall. A black figure emerged out of the hole, coughing on the plaster dust.

Glori blinked and Athena suddenly had the figure in hand, about ready to pummel him into submission when Glori recognized the blond mullet and black leather. "No! Wait!"

Athena heaved a large sigh."**Now** what?"

"I know him."

Longshot finished coughing on plaster dust and looked up at Athena. "Hi," he said with a smile. "Can you help my friend? She hit the building pretty hard."

* * *

Silver Sable looked up from her paperwork as Douglas Powell hesitantly peeked his head in the office door. 

"Ms. Sable, ma'am?"

Silver set down her silver-plated pen and closed the file on Black Horse Inc. she had been working on. Calmly folding her hands on top of the manilla folder, she tried to look non-plussed at the man who hadn't considered knocking on the door. "Yes, Powell?"

"I think there's somethin' on the TV you oughta see, ma'am." Powell stepped into her office and straightened out his sweatsuit a bit.

Silver glanced down at the small, white television built into her desk just below her left elbow. Several heavily muscled men appeared to be cowering in front of a man wearing a lionskin. "What? Is yet another proported journalist dragging my name through the mud?"

"No, ma'am. Not as far as Ah know. But there's this guy claimin' t'be Hercules-"

"Herakles," Silver corrected.

Powell blinked. "Uh, yeah, Herakles. How'd you know?"

Silver reached down and turned up the volume on the small television under her elbow. The commentator was trying his best to describe what was happening with Herakles juggling a few of the World's Strongest Man contestants. The silver-haired mercenary turned the volume back down to its previous almost mute level. "I like to be well aware of competitions that my fellow countrymen are in."

Powell scratched his head. "There's a Symkarian in th' World's Strongest Man competition?"

"Yes, he's-" Silver checked the television, "currently in Herakles' left hand being juggled."

"Shouldn' we go do somethin' about it?"

"Has somebody called it in as a paying job?"

"Uh, no."

"Then there's your answer, Powell." Silver picked up her pen. "Is there anything else?"

"Ms. Sable, Ah know that we have our share of bad PR for whatevah went down in the States, but maybe we should help out there. We are the closest team to Iceland where it's bein' held."

"I wasn't aware you and Sam had switched jobs. I will amend the training schedule accordingly."

"We should do somethin' instead o' sittin' around heah on our butts and watchin' the world go by!"

"Powell, I appreciate your willingness to go out and make Silver Sable International look good again to your home country, but may I remind you that we are not the Avengers. We are the sole source of outside income for the entire country of Symkaria. I cannot afford to go chasing off on do-good missions at the drop of a hat. We are a business, we run like one."

"Ah bet if the ole Herakles was a Hydra agent we wouldn't be havin' this discussion." After he had said that, Powell looked like he let his mouth run off with him.

Silver's blue eyes iced over anyway. "There are special conditions set up for Hydra."

"Ah'm sorry, Silver. It's just that we're the closest team that could do some good an'-"

Silver ignored Powell's attempt at a tone of familiarity. "Actually, we're not. There's a super-powered team in England calling themselves Excalibur. They're closer than we are, and probably more capable of handling it. If they choose not to, I'm sure the Avengers will. Someone calling himself Herakles the Greek god will most likely get Hercules the Avenger's attention."

"But ma'am-"

"If King Stefan tells me to go to Iceland to rescue our fellow countryman, I will go without hesitation. But until then the day runs as usual. Is that understood, Powell?"

Powell sighed, "Yes, ma'am." He started to back out of Silver's office.

Silver flipped open the file folder and began to go over the information again to refamiliarize herself with what she had written before being interrupted. "Good. Get some rest, you have a training session at 5 AM tomorrow."

He paused halfway out the door. "But Ah thought the team didn't have practice til 7 tomorrow."

Silver looked up from the file. "The team doesn't have practice until 7 AM, but you have managed to get yourself a private session at 5. Understood?"

Powell tried to hide his smile behind a frown. "Yes, ma'am." 

Silver blinked as Powell closed the door. She would have her Wild Pack's psychiatrist take a look at the pony-tailed Southerner. It was rather odd to be happy about being put through 5 AM hell. Shrugging to herself, Silver went back to working on the file. After five minutes of diligent work, she closed the file, finished with her report. Setting her pen on top of the folder, she casually reached for the silver-plated receiver of her phone. Quietly, she dialed the private number for King Stefan. If need be, Powell's 5 AM session could be pushed off for a day or two.

* * *

She had been stumbling around an incline for about fifteen minutes when the riot of colors started to leave her alone. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, Spiral glanced around. Getting her knees firmly under her, she saw she was standing on a ramp up to some ruins. Several incomplete columns were off to her left, one not larger than a foot tall, and one complete column stood amidst its broken and battered brethren, looking resilient amongst the decay of its siblings. Glancing down the ramp, she saw a large dirt path leading away from the temple and down towards a very modern-looking road in the distance. Wobbling down the ramp, Spiral misstepped at the base of the ramp and ended up sprawled in the dust. 

Coughing at the plumes of dirt that rose when she hit the ground, Spiral slowly pulled herself up to her knees. She had to rethink her situation. Alone and in the front of some old temple, she was not in an ideal situation to avoid the powerful being hounding the her every step. Hecate had already stripped Spiral of her magical powers, so what else could the magical Titaness be after? When nothing came to mind other than vindictive joy, Spiral had to admit it was a something she herself was prone to do. _Keep your enemies guessing. Make them paranoid until they make a mistake. Then slide in with a quiet knife and lead them out of this life._ The Mistress of the Wildways knew of no feeling quite as heady as seeing your enemy hopelessly destroyed under your boot heel.

Looking around further, she noted that the ruined temple was obviously set in some mountains. There were some green mountains in the distance. Maybe she could make for those and be given time to think. Without her magical powers, she was severely limited. In fact, all she could really be said to be without them was a six-armed human. Something behind her eyes raged against the thought of being human and so weak. Again.

So, if she could get to the mountains from here . . . then there was the question of how she got here. Rubbing her temples she coaxed the memory of the unrelenting cold back out with a shiver. Hecate had thrown her somewhere desolate. Desolate and white. Like death could be under many circumstances. A cold ache from her bones made her shiver again. But she wasn't dead. There was no Maker in front of her, and no fat slob prancing around to welcome her to Hell.

So how did she-?

Longshot. No, not quite him. Something more powerful wearing a Longshot skin. What had he called himself? No, he hadn't called himself anything; though he had called her "Kali." Spiral looked at her hands.

"I don't even have any of the right tools, the idiot." Looking around to see if anyone had heard her speak and decided to pop out to kill her, Spiral was somewhat disappointed at the lack of reaction. The wind blew and some bushes wiggled a little. Walking over to one of the bushes, she kicked it and remembered a time it would have withered in her presence. But now, she was-Za's Vid! She was going to drive herself insane with all this thinking. Well, insaner. Thinking without plot had never been her strong point. A scheme for a reason and every reason for a scheme. Connecting an arm to the chest for the aesthetics or for the extended handling capabilities. It didn't matter.

Of course, now that she was magically barren, it did matter. The pain would be unbearable if she tried, but that didn't matter as much as the host body rejecting her creation. Graft, tape, put it together. Spin it, slide it, give it a new life. Coat it with magic, hold it together, watch it dance under your fingers.

"Are you quite done?"

The voice behind her, jolted her thoughts into a more linear matter of self-preservation. Whirling on her heel, she faced the imposing figure standing at the top of the ramp, the sun behind him glowing like a nimbus of glory. Spiral glanced around for a weapon to put to hand.

The figure moved down the ramp toward her. "I do not know who you are, but your presence at my earthfall could have been no coincidence. No one plucks a god from his perch so lightly."

"Pretty birdboy lost his perch? My heart screams in sympathy. As soon as your bones rot inside you." Spiral backed away, eyes desperately casting about for anything that could do damage.

"Do not take Apollo so lightly, demon." He continued down the ramp, sunlight glinting off of the golden bow in his hand.

"Demon? Heheheh. I've been called worse. You could try calling me a cross-trader and be closer to the truth."

"You will tell me what has happened to my temple."

"Oh? This temple is yours? It got old, fell over. Those things happen." She crouched and picked up a chunk of masonry as big as her palm. 

"They do not happen to **my** temple. Not at Delphi." He stepped down from the side of the ramp and continued forward, forcing Spiral to back down the hillside.

"Guess that makes you a special kind of delusional, doesn't it?"

"There are no delusions. There is only the truth, and you are hiding it from me."

"I can't hide the plain truth, no magic is that powerful. You can see around you," she gestured with one of her hands. "You don't matter anymore. Your temple is a ruin. Excavated by small-minded humans who like digging in dirt."

"You know why I'm here. You know why I can't return to my home in Olympus." He continued his relentless march toward her. 

Spiral tried to keep the curiousity off her face. She knew exactly why he was here, but she didn't know he could not go home. Nor why. Unless something in her ritual was meant to only let energy cross to this plane and not back to the one she had hoped to draw from. With the explosive failure of her experiment and the loss of her mystical powers, there was no way for her to divine the answers, nor any way to give a pleasing answer to the god who wore Longshot's face. 

"Look, berk, you've got to work on how you talk to a lady. Especially a lady who doesn't know what you're talking about."

"I am the God of Light. I can bring the light forth in your skull and leaves you a simpering, quivering mass beside my temple. It is here I am strongest on this plane. It is here I will get the truth from you. You have traces of Mount Olympus on you."

"Then why are you here instead of there, if you're so quick to get out of here? Hmm? Though I'll give this place one thing, it'll be here where you're going to learn what Hecate did to you. Though I'm not sure I should tell you, with her hunting me so relentlessly." Spiral's mind was clicking a step or two ahead of where she should have been, but the imminent sense of danger had spurred her into one of her craftier and subtler specialties, weaving lies. Acting the part. Convincing the audience.

Apollo stopped and narrowed his eyes. "Hecate? Tell me."

"What's in it for me, blondie? I tell you, Hecate tortures me before she kills me." To Spiral's mind, that's what was already happening. "I'm such a delicate soul; I wouldn't be able to bear what she could do to me."

The god looked her up and down. "I can already see that you are the most delicate of flowers."

Spiral tried very hard not to snort. _Can't convince this fool otherwise. Keep the role. Get him away from me._

He shook his head sadly and crossed his arms in front of his chest, giving himself an imperiousness Longshot never had. "Too bad you are already wilting. Tell me what you know and I'll protect you. Hecate lives only by my father's good graces. His grace won't last forever."

"All I know is I was on Mount Olympus for meditation, since it is a locus of power even today. The ambient energy clears my mind. As a minor practitioner of the Arts, I felt something trying to poke into this universe. When I investigated, a tall woman sheathed in armor made of blackened bone stepped out in front of me. Then the world exploded." Spiral waited quietly. If he bought the lies, maybe he would leave her alone. His face made her stomach roil anyway.

"There is truth in there." He offered his hand to her. "Come, let me off you sanctuary while I hunt Hecate."

She looked at him warily. This would be the perfect chance for him to take advantage of her vulnerability, assuming he knew how vulnerable she was at the moment. Perfect opportunity to strike. She knew it because it's what she would have done. Lull the gully into some semblance of security so they wouldn't see the dagger that was sliding in between her ribs. However, there were no other options left to her. Besides, playing a god off of a Titan was a way to buy more time if not permanently get the Titan out of her hair.

Cautiously, she stepped toward Apollo to take his hand. As she was reaching for his hand, he took two quick steps forward and placed his offered hand on her forehead.

Spiral started to snarl. "What are y-"

Her words died as the world became full of light. She felt it blaze inside of her, pushing back the darkness she had wrapped herself in, releasing old memories to destroy the ones she had created for herself to bury the weak person she was before. Before she had tasted magnificence and never wanted to go back to a plain stuntwoman.

The light gained ground until she started to fight back, buffering the memories she claimed as hers with memories of dreams she had had at one time. Dreams that never came true or had been dashed by reality and megalomaniacs. She bulwarked the memories that would be hers, seen through the eyes of a madwoman bent against the prow of a ship, where a woman died and a star was born. Behind her defenses she drew back the memories that had been shattered by the light and began to quickly piece them together. If they became a irrational jumble of fragments, she didn't care. She had been too far gone for too long, but those memories were hers and would stay that way.

Through the din inside herself Spiral could make out Apollo's voice floating through the raging light. 

"Stay on the grounds of my temple and Hecate will not be able to touch you." Then his voice faded beneath the din of Spiral battling herself.

* * *

The white winds of Siberia snapped in anger as Hecate glowered down into the crater. Of all the gods Spiral had to run into, why was it the prissy son of light? The temperature around Hecate plunged another few degrees as she sneered and slowly levitated down to the base of the crater. The only stroke of luck had been that it was Apollo and not his twin. If Artemis had teleported Spiral away, the twisted threads of magic would be near impossible to detangle. Artemis fancied herself the most direct rival of Hecate and there was no love lost between the Titaness and the goddess. Both had been manuevering for centuries to have the other meet an untimely end or, more likely, end up in a pocket dimension for awhile. Hecate had always had the upper hand because Artemis was eternally distracted by other concerns like cute and fluffy creatures and her sappy virgins. 

But her brother Apollo had always helped his sister when Hecate began to unfurl yet another plot. He apparently did not want to give the night sky over to a Titaness instead of his sister, which made him a thorn in Hecate's side rather than a rival. Luckily, Hecate had the gratitude of the twins' father for teaching the lord of the gods much of his mystical arts. It had saved her neck more times than she cared to count, but she knew she had to succeed soon or Zeus would grow weary of the bickering and side with his progeny as a father was wont to do. Especially against the only Titan not in some sort of torment after the wars.

However, all the schemes, plots, and worries were no excuse for why one mortal troubled her so and managed to escape at every chance presented through uncanny luck. Originally, Hecate was just going to let the elements handle Spiral; the little dimension-hopper was of no real use now that she was a magically-barren husk. However, something had nibbled at the back of the new-found powers Hecate had trapped within her essence. There was something out of her reach and threatening to poison the rest of the magical energy she controlled. It was impossible to pin-point, and Hecate had a feeling her mortal target had tricked her. 

Now, she was inside a crater, trying to unravel the threads of teleportation Apollo had twisted with his abrupt departure. It was a common tactic for most any god of value to pull off. Hecate had taught it to Zeus and he had taught it to the rest of the pantheon. His reasoning had been so that no mortal would ever grace Olympus without his say-so. The Titaness thought he did it so no powerful mages got it into their head to try such a feat, especially if that mage had recently had a sexual encounter with one of the gods. Hecate could never understand why a god would consort with mortals let alone have sex with them. To debase oneself so was an admission that you were no longer were better than mortals and didn't deserve the powers a god had.

Hecate's ruminations did not distract her as she tugged and unwound the strands of trace energy left over. She had already discarded three strands as false leads, but the jumble was still formidable. She wondered briefly if Apollo had sensed Hecate nearby and thus had put more attention into his teleportation. The thought was discarded as she pulled another strand loose from the jumble between her hands. Her magic was strong enough to fool any god except the Fates. So, why did he jumble his course so wildly?

Maybe he had mistaken Spiral for someone else. Someone with a modicum of power. Hecate chortled to herself. Unlikely, even a god as low as Apollo could sense that Spiral was not worth the air she breathed anymore. Maybe he had taken Spiral for a romantic jaunt.

Hecate stopped thinking about the whys and wherefores as it was painfully obvious her thoughts were starting to verge on the ludicrous. Gods of Light did not want to spend any time with things that resembled a goddess of death; it pained their "sensibilities." Whatever that meant. Apollo had tried explaining it once, but Hecate was too interested in how the magic flowed between him and his Oracle to pay attention to his rambling speech. When there was a possible weakness to be exploited by means of magic, she would exploit it. Or would have that time had not Artemis caught on and protected her brother.

The strands in Hecate's hands looked more jumbled than when she had started and made a mental note not to think about Artemis when doing something that required more than a little concentration. She was about ready to focus entirely on the magic strands when she heard the sound of something big and heavy moving through the snow near the rim of the crater. Mentally turning herself invisible, she looked up at the rim for what had made that noise. It had come to a rest near the edge, but it still wasn't visible. She felt no magic at play around her, though the wind was still blowing snow around at a fair clip. She reached out with her powers and nudged the winds to a more sedate level. The snow settled as the wind no longer carried it, she saw what had disturbed her. _Not magic invisibility, natural camouflage._

Crouched at the lip of the crater was a large man-creature. The creature being a tiger if she was not mistaken; male too if the loincloth was to be taken seriously. He had the head of a tiger and the rest of his body was covered with fur. His feet overlapped the rim of the crater a bit and black claws peeked out from his hirsute yet human-looking feet. He was colored white with black striping and had his arms curled around something against his chest. He was looking around the bottom of the crater and . . . sniffing? Yes, sniffing. He was looking for a scent. 

Whatever the cat-man had against his chest must have been an attentive listener because he looked down at it and was obviously talking to it. Hecate cast a small dweomer to enhance her hearing and drown out the ambient noise of the surrounding tundra. The language he was speaking was unfamiliar to Hecate, but another small dweomer took care of that.

"- sure, Sashen'ka? I can't smell anything different."

A hand poked out from his arms and waved something rectangular under his nose. "The GPS read-out says right here. Or are we not standing on the rim of a crater that wasn't here last week?"

"Da, there is a crater, but I don't smell anything out of the ordinary." He looked around the interior of the crater again. "If the Commander is right, we should at least smell something different."

"I can't smell anything but your armpits at the moment, brother."

"It is cold out. Stay where it's warm."

His arms squirmed as if to keep a hold of whatever was in them, but failed as a small brown blur popped out of his embrace. It landed beside him in a small drift of snow.

"Bah! I was dying of heat in there." A woman about half the size of the cat-man straightened up. She had short brown hair and a metal blindfold on. Hecate tried to divine what would possess a mortal to encase their eyes with a shiny metal and found no sane reason coming to mind. The woman was wearing a short brown coat that came only to her waist. From the way the coat puffed around her, Hecate guessed either the woman was almost as broad as she was tall or that there was a lot of animal fur inside the coat to keep her warm. It was the latter as the woman burst free of the snow drift and scrambled down the side the crater.

She came to a rest before Hecate, allowing the Titaness to observe how the metal wrapped around her eyes glinted against the harsh light off the snow. Hecate stood a head taller than this woman as they were now both on the same level, which put her brother several heads taller than the Titaness. Unless Hecate decided to go to full titan size, which would put the cat-man at about a quarter of her size. However, growing to that size would make her invisibility slightly useless, so for now she observed the two interlopers.

Sashen'ka was poking around in the base of the crater, sniffing the air as her brother slid gracefully down the smooth side of the crater. As he came down, Hecate noted the pinkish pads on the bottom of his feet. He was not quite as human as she had given him credit for earlier. Though she was idly amused by his ability to form words in some sort of human tongue with the kind of head he had. She still could not detect any magic from him.

"You're just wasting time, little sister. Whatever created this crater is long gone."

"Not too long," Sashen'ka commented as she dug a handful of snow up and tossed it at her brother. He growled after it splatted on his chest. "Come here. Look here and here. These marks were made within the last day. The ground hasn't completely frozen into shape yet."

"So what can make those kind of tracks? Remnants from some sort of meteor?" He crouched down next to his sister, his tail swishing dangerously close to Hecate's kneecap.

She turned herself intangible so as not to lose her quiet position.

"No, the way the tracks move is not a straight impact and they're too regular to be small pieces. I'd say a human foot caused these. Muscular enough to kick up the frozen soil, too."

"Hmm. So, what do we tell the Commander?" He poked at the tracks with a clawed fingertip.

"Nothing good. Neither of us can smell anything out of the ordinary around-" She sniffed and pounced to her left. She pulled something out of the snow with a triumphant "Ah-ha!"

"What is it?" He sniffed toward it and recoiled slightly.

"Looks like somebody lost some fur lining to their jacket, maybe." Sashen'ka held up the powdered white fur. "Something for the scientists to analyze at least," she shrugged. 

Hecate recognized it as part of one of Spiral's boots. If she could get her hands on that, she could track Spiral down without having to untangle Apollo's mess. Well, the time for her to remain hidden from mortal senses was at an end.

The Titaness dropped her invisibility and intangibility. Sashen'ka's eyes widened at the sudden presence of someone in the crater. Her hand reflexively clenched over the bootfur.

"Give me the fur and I will let you live," Hecate said drolly in their tongue. One step closer to her objective and there was little these mortals could do against her.

When the cat-man flipped behind her, she knew these mortals were going to offer what resistence they could. She didn't mind. It would be a splendid chance to test out her newly gained powers.

"Very well. Prepare to enter Hades' realm." Hecate spun in an intricate movement and leveled a blast at the cat-man.

* * *

Forge was quite jetlagged by the time he made it into the American Embassy in Tokyo. He was in serious need of coffee, and not the cheap Japanese version of a Starbuck's rip-off he was handed. It tasted like 10 grit sandpaper used on roofing tar. However, there had to have been a caffeine content because the Cheyenne was finding his eyes less prone to take a small rest. He was leaning against a table with a black glass top, with his cup of steaming tar in his non-bionic hand. The conference room was sparsely decorated, but there was an impressionistic painting directly across from him that made his eyes blur more if he stared at it too long. Forge had already stared at it for five minutes when the door next to the painting opened.

When Forge's eyes decided to uncross, a man looking to be in his early forties stood in the doorway, not looking pleased at the vacantness of the room. Forge eyed the man dressed in a conservative brown suit as he set the cup of "coffee" down on the tabletop. The man was of medium hair, had brown hair and nervous steel-blue eyes, and was clasping a file folder against his side. 

"Uh, I was told the tactical force to help the Japanese officials was here?"

Not very officious sounding. Forge crossed his arms in front of his chest, knowing that this suit was unprepared to know that the government had just sent Forge alone. "Yep, I'm here."

"I was lead to believe that a tactical force consisted of more than one person. Especially considering the problem at hand." 

"I'm quite special and under the employ of the U.S. government. I may not know what exactly the problem at hand may be, but I got here as fast as I could allow. Brief me on what the problem is so I can handle it and move on." 

"Uh, maybe we can wait for the others to show up? There are others coming, right?"

"Nope. The government feels the most efficient way for the situation to be handled is by myself. I'd feel that way too if I knew what I was supposed to be doing."

"There must be some mistake," the man brought the file up from his side and shook it at Forge. "This . . . thing has already thwarted everything Japanese law could throw at it. This stand-off has been going on for hours, defeating any conventional methods of flushing the man out. Most everything done has been repelled."

Forge reached for the file, but it was snatched back before he could lay a finger on it. "Has the Japanese military tried anything?"

"Everything short of borrowing a tactical nuke from Russia to blow him out of the factory. They even called in Sunfire, the great national hero, and he was repelled. Word is he felt his fires dim the closer he got." He sighed. "Look, Mr. -?"

"Forge."

"Mr. Forge, this guy has to be some sort of mutant or something. I was hoping maybe the government would point the Avengers this way. I think they're best suited to handling a . . . thing this poweful."

Forge raised an eyebrow and diplomatically bit his tongue. He waited for a breath or two before saying anything. "May I see the file, so I can offer my professional opinion on the situation?"

"And what profession would make you qualified to give your opinion on this matter?" The man's frustration with what he saw as an uncaring government was quickly finding an outlet. Forge had just stepped off of a jet after a nonstop flight to Tokyo. The fact that the jet was one of his creation made it an easier and shorter ride than was conventionally available, but that still did not make Forge less cranky. He was ready to snap back.

"I assume, Mr. -?"

"Geary. Stan Geary."

"I assume, Mr. Geary, that you have heard of X-Factor."

Geary's face darkened. Apparently, the government run mutant team wasn't on Geary's nice list as his answer took a clipped tone. "Yes."

"I lead them. Now, hand me the file and leave me to do my business."

Geary hesitated before slapping the file down into Forge's outstretched hand. He waited a second before turning on his heel and storming out of the conference room. Forge watched him go and waited until the door slammed shut before opening the file. Shaking his head, he glanced through the file. The problem had showed up out of the blue, standing about 15 feet tall and very destructive to the mostly automated assembly line. He didn't speak any language that anybody in Japan knew. He also had been keeping a foreman hostage and was not responding to any negotiation techniques due to the language barrier. He'd also repelled a couple barrages of tear gas and a couple of the local superheroes trying their hand at his removal.

All Forge had to do was contain the situation and possibly get the oversized foreigner to some place secure. Japan had called in an American agent because they had basically run out of options. Forge eyed a grainy surveillance picture of the man of the hour. His face didn't ring any bells. 

First thing's first, he'd have to get the hostage free. If he picked up a few supplies off his jet, he'd be set. After all, the Maker could handle just about anything given the time to prepare. He just needed to grab his translator, his crystal paralyzer, and his gravitonic pistol as a back up. Once things were in under control, he promised himself a nap.

* * *

The revelers at Carnaval were expecting the best one yet as the preparations came to a close on Friday evening. By Saturday morning, the celebrations kicked off with a bang and the excitement began. The costumes were as bright as ever imagined and as revealing as was personally tantalizing. From women wearing ornate feathered headdresses to men wearing little more than a strategic strap and body paint, it was a world removed from the panic spreading in the Northern Hemisphere. A world that a goddess was enjoying as much as possible.

Aphrodite watched a woman shimmy by wearing a grin, a headdress, and that was about it. She was heading toward a well-muscled man dressed in a yellow sundress and wearing 12-inch platform shoes. Shaking her head against the temptation, she turned to the man wearing the tight pair of bright blue shorts who had been fawning on her since she had arrived in this park.

"Dance, milady?"

"No, my feet are tired from the twelve dances before."

Her companion frowned slightly. "Only nine of those were with me."

Aphrodite leaned closer to him, her dress slipping slightly from her shoulders. She couldn't help but notice the color of expectation rise in his cheeks. "Go away. You bore me."

He looked extremely stricken, which really wasn't a cute expression for him. "But my g-"

"Go. Shoo! Begone!" Aphrodite waved him away. "You'll be late finding your one true love if you continue to hang around in my magnificence."

"But you are-"

Aphrodite laughed and turned back on him. "Do not presume you are up to my standards, little man. There are few mortals who can hold my interest with the sloppy kisses you're prone to give. Now, go drown your sorrows in beer or festivities, but begone nonetheless."

He frowned but backed away, disappearing into the crowd. The goddess shook her head, knowing full well, he'd head straight for a beer garden and get himself enamored by one of the waitresses there on her day off. It was as plain as his entire face had been. If Aphrodite were lower in station, she might have envied the love-to-be. While the man's face had been plain, his body had been extraordinary.

Aphrodite shrugged and waded through the heaving crowd of revelers. She wondered if Dionysus were around. This festival reeked of his trademark. Not that she minded. Any reason to cut loose was fine with her. Especially after being mystically dumped here. So much eyecandy, so few deserving mortals.

She sailed through the crowd, looking for someone to keep her company and extol her virtues for at least the next hour when she felt something familiar pass behind her. Pausing to identify what it was, Aphrodite found a very faint scent that haunted her memories and stirred up her heart. It was like . . . something she had smelled when . . . she couldn't quite place it. She turned about and looked around. Nothing stood out in the joyous mass of people moving about with shouts of happiness. The scent was fading, getting farther away. She shoved her way through the crowd, not paying attention to couples who complained about momentarily being separated.

The scent strengthened as she made it out to a thinner spot in the crowd. It was stronger than when she first had sensed it, making her closer to her target. She glanced around at the people surrounding her. Many more colorful costumes to make her job harder, but she caught sight of a green and yellow jersey disappearing between two women wearing bright red bustiers. The scent was not lingering, so it couldn't be any of the people around here.

Aphrodite paused and stroked her chin. Before chasing after the jersey, the goddess willed her outfit to look like the ensamble before her. Her clothing reshaped and recolored to suit her needs as she sprinted after the retreating jersey. She nearly ran-over her query as she reached the fringe of the party. Two young girls were talking rather animatedly beneath a street light and were quite surprised by a gorgeous blonde woman running up to them. Luckily, Aphrodite's superior reflexes allowed her to look like she was not overshooting her target and look like she meant to stop abruptly.

"Can we help you, ma'am?" The young lady in the green and yellow jersey asked. 

Aphrodite looked down at her since she was over a head taller. The young woman had long, dark hair and equally dark eyes. Her facial features were achingly familiar. Memories long since buried by eons but never truly faraway from consciousness caused the goddess to step back a bit.

The other young lady was dressed in a bikini and body paint meant to resemble a peacock's colors. "Hey, are you alright? Do you need to see a doctor or something."

Aphrodite shook her head to dispell the memories of love by a calm glade. "No, no. I'm fine. I was hoping to ask you, young lady," she indicated the one wearing the jersey, "about your costume."

A big grin expanded across her young face. "You like it don't you?" She turned toward her companion. "I *told* you it wasn't bad! Soccer uniforms fit in with this crowd. This lady even likes it."

"A woman wearing a shiny, red bustier is not indicative of taste," the peacocked one grumbled before realizing the goddess could probably hear her. "No offense, ma'am. I'm just growing tired of my friend's overly strong attachment to an old soccer uniform."

"It's not an attachment. It's a family heirloom!"

"One generation of cousins does not make an heirloom!"

Before the two could begin their argument anew, Aphrodite stepped between the young ladies, placing the one dressed in peacock colors behind her. The girl made sounds that she was going to protest so the goddess slipped a little glamor over her weak mind. A simple fascination with a godly posterior could never hurt. Aphrodite ignored the attention suddenly lavished on her backside as she looked down at woman who was barely out of being a girl. "Where did you get such a magnificsent uniform?"

"It was my cousin's. It was Roberto's. He wore it once playing football. He let me have it when he got a better one."

"This Roberto, he was a charming man?" Aphrodite finally pegged down the scent. It had been centuries since the Fates were cruel to her, but now it appeared they were giving her another chance. 

"Oh, the most charming. He had a way with the ladies, but his way never got in the way for his devotion to Juliana, God rest her soul." The young woman made some sort of gesture over her brow and chest.

"So this uniform of yours, it belonged to him, right?" Aphrodite gently fingered the sleeve. She could still feel the long ago traces of his warmth. "Incredible," she murmured softly.

"Oh, aye, he was incredible. I was amazed when he let me have this uniform. You see, he was the best. He could have played nationally."

Aphrodite looked up sharply. "Could have?" Not when she had been so close.

"Yes, his heart left the game when Juliana died. It was such a terrible thing." She made that curious gesture again.

"So, your cousin, he still lives?"

"Oh, yes. I got a postcard from him two weeks ago."

"Is he here? Is Roberto here at Carnaval?"

The girl frowned slightly. "No, I don't think he made it this year either. I often wonder how long one can not make it to Carnaval and still call yourself Brazillian. But then again, Roberto is special. He went to this special school up in America. I think he graduated. Probably with honors. I just know he doesn't go to that school anymore."

Aphrodite looked the girl straight in the eye. "Where does Roberto live now?"

The girl's eyes went a little vacant. "The . . . postmark read . . . San Francisco."

Aphrodite smiled. "Thank you, child." She placed her index finger between the young lady's eyes. "Go with love. Find your heart's desire."

The girl nodded and stumbled off. Aphrodite reached behind herself and plucked the pair of hands off her posterior. "Go with your friend. Make sure she doesn't fall in love with a rock or a statue or something."

"Yes, milady." The peacock-colored girl jogged off after her friend.

Aphrodite momentarily thought of sending her son after those two. The information they provided was at least enough for a small boon of love. Ah, but that was a thought for another day. For now she needed to head to this San Francisco place. With a small gesture, Aphrodite left Rio de Jenero with one wistful word on her lips.

"Adonis."


	13. CTMH 11b - The Dakota Special

DISCLAIMER: The X-Men and Longshot belong to Marvel. I am using them without permission, but at no profit whatsoever. This is a tale told entirely for entertainment. Dakota and Yankton belong to me, and can only be used with my expressed permission. The Greek gods belong to well, the Greek and the rest of the world at large. 

NOTE: If you made it this far, you've probably read the first part of CTMH 11. If not, why haven't you? Hmph. Anyway, this originally appeared as a post in Dakota's on-line journal; it's been edited slightly. It does change perspective and POV but I couldn't manage to get the final part to go as smoothly as this. So after _**months**_ of frustration, I copped out. :} Ahem. A look into Dakota's mind during the events of the story. Enjoy.

Feedback can be sent to bkittle@creighton.edu 

* * *

Climb That Mountain High  
Part Eleven B  
By: Beverly McIntyre

Unconsciousness was good. Unconsciousness was healing. Woo woo. Let's hear it for unconsciousness! Until I woke up. Then unconsciousness was bad because I'd been unconscious for over 6 hours. Reyes thinks that my body was making sure I mended.

Wake up to Reyes' bedside manner and Yankton trying to stay in bed with me despite the doc's best efforts. Get up and wobble around a lot. If I hit my shin on anything, I could break whatever bones are down there again, but I could stand and be happy about that. Stumbled/wobbled my way to the TV room because that is the only den of entertainment in the whole damn house. Get scolded by Reyes the entire time for walking. Though she did try to catch me when I nearly fell down the stairs. Ah, grace thy name is nothing resembling Dakota.

Get down to the TV room and Bobby is watching the news. Nice background noise as I carefully flop down in a lawnchair. Reminds me of res chic. I ask where everybody else is.

Bobby says all the guys are scouring the grounds for the creature that had attacked Storm and I. 

I asked how long they had been searching.

He said a couple hours. He was sure they must have had something or have gone off-grounds by now.

I told him if Longshot and Wolverine were out there and had not bagged and tagged the little shit, then there was no real reason to be searching any longer. The little shit was probably long gone. 

I wasn't in a good mood as my language could attest to. I try to watch the news but Bobby is still talking about where everybody is. He says Longshot isn't out there searching. He left the mansion a few hours ago with Psylocke, Rogue, and Storm in tow.

I asked if Storm was feeling better. Reyes hrumphed at me. Apparently, the doc hadn't been too keen on Storm going anywhere and got overruled somehow. I don't want to know who overruled Reyes as I can't do it myself. Yet.

Bobby said that the four had gone to Greece to rescue somebody.

I wondered why Greece.

Bobby looked at me and then remembered I'd been out of action for most of the day. He turned up the TV and nodded toward it.

I took one look at the little story explanation line at the bottom of the screen and nearly fell out of my chair. "Greece in chaos after appearance of 'gods.'" 

My throat kind of closed off when I remembered that my kid sister is in Greece, taking a vacation.

Bobby's still going on about how it's not just in Greece that these god sightings are happening. They're happening all over the world. 

I talk over Bobby now as my heart has decided to try to hammer it's way out of my chest from abject worry. I ask exactly who was the person Longshot and the gals were going after.

Neither Bobby nor Reyes knew but they said it looked like the person was important to Longshot.

I nearly settle down. Lucky will be in the area. He'll save my little sister. If he doesn't, I will tan his leathery hide. And not in any good sense. This is my little sister. More important than any hero game I think I can play.

I get up, much to Reyes annoyance because now she has to get me to sit back down. Which she does with much more style than force. I tell her if I have to sit here then she can get me a phone. I have an important call to make. She gets a phone for me with this sort of annoyed/pained look on her face. I know she hates patients like me. If she had more patients like me, she'd be out of business. Luckily, she's with the X-Men. They wound themselves as a matter of course. Has to be in the superhero contract or something. 

I call Timoth, my bro-in-law and employer. He tells me he was wondering when I was going to call. He thought that family meant more to me. I grate out the civilities and explain I've been laid up with broken legs.

"Never stopped you before."  
"Timoth, have you seen the news?"  
"About the gods? Yes. That's why I sent the whiteboy you took as a brother to get my best field operative back."  
"Glori?"  
There's a large sigh on the other end of the line. "Of course, your sister. Is there anything else you need?"  
"..."  
"Dakota."  
"Thanks, Timoth. I owe you."  
"As always." Smug damn bastard.

I hang up the phone wanting to strangle him. I do all the work, he makes all the money and in turn, makes me feel like shit. Like I can't provide for my own people. 


End file.
